Gina Gionfriddo’s hilarious, biting yet supremely satisfying dark comedy, Becky Shaw, has finally made it to Broadway and is most definitely the boldest, funniest show of the season to date.
The play, first produced at the 2008 Humana Festival, opened off Broadway that same year to rave reviews and was a Pulitzer finalist. It’s the kind of brazen, no-bullshit work that current theater producers seem to be shying away from, lest they upset the perceived precious sensitivities of today’s audiences. Thank the theatre gods for Second Stage!
The play opens in New York City with our two main characters, psych student Suzanna (an impressive Lauren Patten) and finance whiz Max (Alden Ehrenreich), both mid-30s and ostensibly sister and brother, but only by happenstance and not blood. The patriarch of the family died four months prior, and the no-nonsense Max is in charge of the family finances, which are apparently dwindling. He also knows a whopper of a secret about dear old dad. Enter Susan (Linda Emond), the refined, caustic matriarch with MS who is now shacking up with her housepainter boytoy and cannot understand why her daughter is still grieving. “You didn’t lose a child or even a breast. Your father died of natural causes after a life well-lived. That’s not loss, it’s transition,” Susan insists.
At the end of the first scene sexual tension that has percolated for two decades, bubbles over and Suzanna and Max have at each other.
But in the very next scene, eight months later, Suzanna is married to thoughtful writer Andrew (Patrick Ball) and both are preparing for a matchmaking evening where Max is to meet the titular Becky Shaw (Madeline Brewer), a “delicate” temp in Andrew’s office, who is “kind of in a melancholic place.” Andrew is worried that the abrasive and often-bullying Max will scare her off. It’s fascinating to watch the obnoxiously blunt Max interact with Andrew, who is all about empathy.
Becky arrives, seemingly a sensitive mess, but there’s a lot more going on underneath her possibly put-on surface and suffice to say, this blind date (which mostly occurs offstage) doesn’t go as expected. I’ll stop here because so many pleasures are in store for the audience as the play continues to unfold and characters begin to reveal more layers.
The vastly underrated director Trip Cullman (Significant Other, Cult of Love) handles this material with a swift yet sly touch, it’s hard to know which character to look at, they’re all doing something fascinating most of the time—a tribute to the amazing and fearless ensemble as well—one of the best since Prayer for the French Republic, a few seasons ago.
Three-time Tony nominee Emond is only in two scenes but deserves more Tony attention for commanding the stage every time she appears. (The great Kelly Bishop (Gilmore Girls) played Susan off-Broadway.) Emond’s Susan shows tremendous insight into human foibles.
Ball, in a great departure from his role on HBO Max’s The Pitt, is the personification of sensitivity, patience and adoration—towards his wife—and possibly Becky. Ball’s Andrew is the kind of guy everyone wants as a husband, until they don’t anymore.
Becky is an initially adorable mess, but her tenacity and relentlessness begin to seep through. Susan unsurprisingly assesses her best: “You may have been very victimized in your life; you may be a complete con artist. I don’t know. My sense is you fall somewhere in the middle.” Brewer has a ball with this thrillingly enigmatic character.
Max is the type a role an actor dreams of playing, his scathing, nasty zinger lines and the delight he takes in evisceration–a cornucopia of richness to tap into. Ehrenreich (Oppenheimer), in his Broadway debut, tears into it with aplomb. It is one of the finest stage performances of the year, for certain.
Gionfriddo has created a fantastically enjoyable comedy that manages to say a lot about power, control and relationship dynamics—what we deliberately overlook, what we cannot abide by, and what we, as humans, are capable of when we want something desperately and/or are wronged.
Becky Shaw, a strong contender for the Best Play Revival Tony, is playing at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater (240 W 44th Street). For tickets visit BECKYSHAW.
