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Review Abigail's Party
Acorn Theatre
January 7, 2006
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org
Mike Leigh's modus operandi for story-telling is to take actors, give them a situation, let them improvise, shape it, lead the actors in certain directions, re-shape it again and again, and finally fine-tune it into, in some cases, a work of art. The actors can't help but live in their characters' skins because it has come directly from them and it's what makes them so bitingly true. So how difficult must it be for actors to come to one of Mr. Leigh's works almost three decades later and step into roles not organically home-grown? If the New Group's Abigail's Party is any indication, it doesn't seem difficult at all.
Beverly has decided to throw a little soiree for a few friends and neighbors and demonstrate what a sophisticated, luscious hostess is all about. She may even have a hidden motive up her faux-feather edged, draped-to-the-calves sleeves. Her husband, Laurence, would rather work than be a part of this get-together and it's painfully obvious from the start that his desire to be anywhere else is palpable. However, only three guests arrive - Angela, a nurse, her husband, Tony, who works in computers, and Susan, a divorced mother of two whose daughter, Abigail, is having a shindig close by - the pounding speakers of the stereo and the large number of guests dwarfing the present action. But Beverly will not be thwarted in her desire to entertain. She will have everyone smoking, dancing and drunk before long and in her driven cause she succeeds in reducing the adults to the shenanigans of the kids down the hall.
Mr. Leigh has often pointedly exposed the middle class of his native Britain and the pitiable muddle that an ancient class system has created. Of course, this situation isn't solely owned by the British. It's universal which makes Mr. Leigh's works not only comic but often a bit uncomfortable to sit through with one's recognition of the willingness to step into glaring pitfalls. In this instance, two married couples that have nothing in common as couples or individuals but are married and socialize anyway because that's what people do, move through their strained lives with anger, either overt or suppressed, searching for a place they'll never find. Yet they keep going, an implosion or explosion just around the corner. Susan, the one single person in the room, despite her concern for her daughter or possibly her home, appears totally defeated with little to say, think or do. It's clear that those currently with her at Beverly's party will end up just as defeated.
The ensemble of five work with each other beautifully. Who knew that Jennifer Jason Leigh could be so funny? Though her accent wavers now and then, the subsumed desperation of having the perfect evening with a touch of the naughty as its goal couldn't be more experienced. As her husband, Max Baker, with his cowered stoop caused by a boulder sized chip on his shoulder, is a bit over the top but then the character does suffer from apoplexy. As the guest couple, Elizabeth Jasicki and Darren Goldstein, have found more than meets the eye and what is hilarious at first becomes disturbing later. Lisa Emery is almost unrecognizable as Susan. She has found a way to take a woman's obliteration so that she disappears in front of the other characters but never from the audience's view.
The design team has recreated the late 70's unflinchingly, the props getting as many laughs as the actors. Scott Elliott, who often fails in other genres, serves Mr. Leigh perfectly. Not an easy feat.
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