That crazy Focker...

The House of Blue Leaves

Walter Kerr Theatre

Monday, May 16, 8pm performance

I first saw The House of Blue Leaves in the early 90’s when Muhlenberg Summer Theatre decided to experiment by presenting a play during its regular all-musical season.  Let’s just say they’re back to doing musical-only seasons.  Not that it was a bad production.  I remember enjoying it.  But housewives in Allentown, PA want to see big, splashy musicals, not challenging straight theatre. 

I was a budding young theatre fag living the dream and if I remember correctly, we were rehearsing My Fair Lady while Blue Leaves was running in the evenings.  Those were the days - living in communal cast housing, rehearsing, performing, drinking and partying.  In the 20(!) years since, this is my first time seeing another production of Blue Leaves.  I honestly don’t remember it being such a fucked up play.  Thanks to TDF, I snagged a nice second row mezzanine seat on far house right. 

Director David Cromer seemed a bit heavy-handed with the theatrical realism given the ridiculous story line and characters. I mean, a main character is named Bunny Flingus.  This ain’t Richard II.  I appreciate the approach, but in the end it’s an absurdist comedy that veers into farce.  You wont’ see a group of nuns, an AWOL soldier in altar boy robes and a deaf movie starlet running around an Arthur Miller play.

It took me most of the first act to warm up to Ben Stiller’s Artie.  But by the end, I felt some empathy for his desperate loser.  Edie Falco’s Bananas was, well, bananas.  But again, I think it was a mistake to turn her into a humorless zombie.  Why did Artie fall in love with this woman?  Why is he still with her?  Had I seen some remnant of an early love affair, I might have felt more sympathy for their current situation.  Right now, they come off us big ole whiners.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is either horribly directed or terribly miscast (or a little of both, I suspect).  Her nails-on-chalkboard screech of a voice makes one wonder how anyone could fall for her.  It’s a one note performance where although she always seems to be screaming, you can barely hear/understand what she’s saying.

The production starts to take off in act two with the introduction of the nuns.  But by then we don’t really care much for anyone on stage, so we’re basically watching a live cartoon - all action, no heart.  The exceptions being Thomas Sadowski and Alison Pill who seem to better understand the comic-tragic balance of the play, but who only grace the stage briefly.

The ending is still shocking and I like the oddly skewed set (though the obvious symbolism seems a bit like overkill).  Glad I saw it, but will wait another 20 years to see if the next revival can get it just right.