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Cynthia Nixon, probably best-known for Sex and the City, certainly doesn't supplant Chalfant. Nor does she imitate her under Lynne Meadow's direction. Her softer approach works well enough she's trying to make light of her sufferings, deriding the diction and attitudes of her physicians, or taking issue with the playwright as she addresses us, a twinkle in her eye. But at the core of this drama, Vivian is looking back on her own flickering life and discovering, with a mixture of shame and horror, that she has lived it almost completely with her wits and without her heart. That calls for more coldness in those flashbacks where she's being gently upbraided by her motherly mentor, Dr. Ashford, or when she's so cruelly rigid toward her own students.
Carra Patterson is a glowing presence as Susie Monahan, the RN who finally teaches Vivian the simple angelic virtue of lovingkindness. Likewise, Michael Countryman and Greg Keller are perfectly dialed into the physicians' well-intentioned cluelessness. Their heartlessness to her is a richly deserved payback. But here too Meadow's more benign approach skims off a little of the impact when Nurse Susie battles against her patient's caretakers when they seek to plug her in to life support. First-timers, however, will likely find this Wit more than sufficiently harrowing and melodramatic as Vivian's tribulations and biography unfold. In those qualities, it is nearly as powerful as the Charlotte Rep production, winner of our Best Drama award in 2001. (Through March 17)
Seminar (***1/4) – Manuscripts are cropping up on Broadway stages everywhere this season, but most profusely in Theresa Rebeck's newest dark comedy. Alan Rickman brings his saturnine acidity to a brilliant-but-disgraced writer reduced to giving private seminars to the crème de la crème of rich grad students who can afford him. Most of the action takes place in the embarrassingly luxurious rent-subsidized living room of Kate, who is in a deep rut, constantly rewriting and re-polishing a piece that will never be a gem.
Leonard, the seminar guru, is brutally honest about the safe diffidence of Kate's manuscript, but he's equally unsparing with Douglas, a talented novelist destined for a career of well-respected mediocrity. On the other hand, Leonard is deeply appreciative toward Izzy's prose – or is that merely a muse devised to get him past her panties? Leonard gets there, regardless of his true feelings, sparking flares of literary and sexual jealousy from the rest of the class. Nobody is more keenly hurt than Martin, the student most reluctant to have Leonard read his work.
It's an electric moment when it finally happens, Rickman reminding us how magical the theater can be when the right actor dominates our attention – silently, with only a sheaf of papers in his hand. Of course, having experienced the crucible of the Iowa Writer's Workshop for two years, I may be atypically susceptible to the impact of such riveting moments of truth, but Rebeck's depiction of the primal neediness, competitiveness, and ultimate fellowship of fledgling writers is absolutely on the mark. Piercing quips abound, leading to profound truths.
Dressed in the loudest of David Zinn's astute costume designs, Jerry O'Connell capably launches the comedy as Douglas, the writer who changes the least. Hamish Linklater doesn't soft-peddle Martin's salient weaknesses – the carping, the mooching, the sheepdog gutlessness – but he grows significantly in the strange ecology of this seminar. Rebeck's women are also flawed, rewardingly brainy and sexy. Hettienne Park is an enticingly Asian temptress as Izzy, fun-loving and cosmopolitan. As Kate, Lily Rabe plays off Izzy's seductive exploits – and Leonard's magisterial goading – with a crackling resentment that leads to a sexual/artistic awakening every bit as radical as Martin's.
Jeff Goldblum will replace Rickman on April 3, no doubt giving Leonard's shambling aspects more emphasis. I'm glad I saw Rickman's world-weary glamour, but with Sam Gold's sure-handed direction, I'm confident that Goldblum – and the two other newbies who arrive with him – will be fine.
Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark (**1/2) – When you've seen this notorious $65 million extravaganza, the first thing people will want to know is: did anybody fall? No, the dangerous flying of multiple Spidermen and his demented arch-enemy, The Green Goblin – flying across the stage, from stage to balcony, and most impressively, fighting each other over the orchestra patrons – went off quite flawlessly. I chose a Sunday matinee to make sure I sampled the impact of all this high-tech showmanship on the most juvenile crowd possible. If you or your child has a thirst that only a flying comic book superhero can satisfy, the afternoon will be enjoyable. Adults who were able to laugh at some of the silliest excesses probably had as much fun as the kids.