BROOKLYN BOY

Playwright Donald Margulies, whose play Brooklyn Boy is currently being featured by the Jewish Repertory Theatre of WNY, has had a varied career. A highlight would certainly be his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Dinner with Friends. Other plays include Sight Unseen, which won an Obie, about a famed artist who returns to a former love to retrieve an early painting; The Loman Family Picnic, which starred Christine Baranski, about a bar mitzvah that gets out of hand; and Collected Stories, a play about a celebrated writer who is betrayed by her young disciple. A frequent theme of Margulies’ work is the compromise between self-interest and self-sacrifice and the moments when that balance is violated.

At its best, Margulies’ work is complex and thought-provoking. At its weakest, it is superficial and sentimental. Brooklyn Boy certainly falls into the latter category, but is saved by a concomitant lack of pretension and the strength of its secondary relationships. Specifically, while Margulies, in this play, waxes sentimental in the main character’s relationship with his father and the old neighborhood, in his relationships with women, Margulies is as complicated and insightful as ever.

In Brooklyn Boy, a writer named Eric Weiss is about to hit the big time with an autobiographical novel. He returns home to Brooklyn to see his dying father in the hospital and gives the old man a copy of the book. Eric yearns for approval from his father, but is destined never to receive it, except in post-mortem fantasy. While in the hospital cafeteria he runs into his childhood friend, Ira Zimmer, who tries to lure him back into old friendships and to reconnect him to Judaism. Eric, it seems, abandoned his religion too.

That is the soggy center of the plot. It flirts tantalizingly, however, with more intriguing aspects of Eric’s character. As in most Margulies plays, we see this in the character’s sexual relationships. His wife, also a writer, is kicking him out. Being with Eric only reminds her that she is a failure, especially now that he is about debut as number 11 on the New York Times Best Seller List. He also has a killer scene in a hotel room with an attractive female university student, played by Bonnie Jean Taylor, but is unable to carry through with the tryst. These scenes are riveting.

Jewish Repertory Theatre of WNY has given the play a smart and appealing production with a first-rate cast headed by Peter Palmisano as Eric. Norm Sham plays Ira Zimmer with equal doses of good-humor and sentiment. Saul Elkin is similarly effective in the role of the father. Debbie Pappas is marvelously unbending and heartbreaking as the wife. Kelly Meg Brennan and Paschal Frisina III have a fun scene as Hollywood types running roughshod over Eric’s touching, yet too Jewish for their taste, story.

Directed by Scott Behrend, the production is good-natured and nostalgic. The production runs through March 18 at the Alleyway Theatre.

BASED ON A

TOTALLY TRUE STORY

Seeing Charles Busch’s new comedy Our Leading Lady and the current Buffalo United Artists production of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s Based on a Totally True Story reminded me of how lucky Buffalo is to have such a diverse and substantial acting pool. The cast of Our Leading Lady features Kristine Nielsen, a daft actress with astounding timing who also happened to originate the role of Mary Ellen, the slightly unhinged Hollywood agent in Based on a Totally True Story. Caitlin Coleman’s performance in BUA’s version of the play bears inspired similarities to Nielsen’s in ways that are uncanny, especially when you consider that Miss Coleman has never seen Miss Nielsen at all.

Buffalo will probably never see Miss Nielsen’s work. She won an Obie for originating the role of Mrs. Siezmagraff in Christopher Durang’s play, Betty’s Summer Vacation. She received rave notices for Ms. Witherspoon. But she, like Julie White (of Little Dog Laughed, Bad Dates and Dinner with Friends), or Cherry Jones, or Donna Murphy, or Victoria Clark, or any of a host of outrageously appealing actresses who have no reason to step outside of New York City—unless it’s for a trip to Hollywood—would be hard-pressed to come here. Gone are the days when everyone from Barrymore to Bankhead to Cornell toured the nation, including an inevitable stop at Buffalo’s Erlanger Theatre. I hear even the legendary Erlanger is slated for demolition. Ah, Buffalo.

What we do have in this town is an abundance of small, independent theater companies that give our local talent plenty of opportunity to strut their stuff, while giving the local population an opportunity to sample a varied selection of American plays. In this small domain, Caitlin Coleman is a star.

Coleman does not play the main character of Based on a Totally True Story. That honor goes to Christopher LaBanca, who gives a totally charming performance as Ethan Keene, a comic book writer with aspirations to become a screenwriter. Coleman plays the agent who recognizes his talent and runs him through the wringer in the process of getting his film made. Coleman’s character fills a vital type in the contemporary theater; she is that female character to whom throngs of gay men are inexplicably drawn. For the duration of the run, Miss Coleman (by day a teacher and mother of two) will not have to pay for a single drink at a downtown gay bar, you can be sure. Yes, she is just that compelling in this daft and slightly absurdist role.

The rest of the company in this fast-paced comedy, directed by Chris Kelly, is full of talent with not a slacker in the bunch, but they can’t hope to keep up with Aguirre-Sacasa’s writing of the Mary Ellen role. The aforementioned LaBanca provides a solid anchor to the proceedings. John Healy is dryly funny as Tyler and others. Matt Mooney is marvelous as the dreamy boyfriend Ethan can’t manage to keep. Bill Schmidt is extremely sweet as Ethan’s romantically challenged Dad.

The play cruises along on familiar character types. Aquirre-Sacasa gives us the absurdity of modern living, careers and romance in a very comforting diversion. BUA, with its aggressively minimalist style, is well-suited to this sort of vehicle in which similar vitality and focus is brought to everything from Psycho Beach Party to House of Bernarda Alba. No set. No props. (Sometimes a substantial wig budget.) For Based on a Totally True Story, all loose ends will be tied together. I do not give it away by promising that a happy ending is in store. I laughed and laughed and laughed.