Marlo Thomas and Greg Mallavey Photos by: Matthew Murphy)

 

                                                   By David Schultz

If you have been craving to see a play that harkens back to the good ole days of the mid 1960’s, look no further.  The reverberations of Neil Simon hang heavy over the Westside Theatre on 43^rd street. Playwright Joe DiPietro has fashioned a perfect homage to Simon, and for a certain percentage of its elderly audience it will feel like manna from heaven. Fifty years ago this play would have been a huge hit, today’s theatrical climate with patrons clutching their cell phones in the dark is another matter. You can go back home, but it looks and feels more like a museum piece.

This playwright has found his niche of course, with his hugely popular play I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change playing for decades, as well as The Thing About Men, The Toxic Avenger, and last Spring’s Living on Love with opera diva Renee Fleming. Clever Little Lies is entertaining and very accessible not unlike his other works. Add to the mix a star-turn by Marlo Thomas (That Girl) and this play is comfort food for the soul. 

Kate Wetherhead, George Merrick, Marlo Thomas and Greg Mallavey  

The first scene sets up the entire play in quick brushstrokes. Bill, Sr. (Greg Mullavey) and son Billy (George Merrick) have just finished a round of tennis, and are changing back into their street clothes in the club locker room. Billy seems distraught and withholding his secret to his father no longer, reveals that he is having an adulterous affair with a 23-year-old trainer from his gym. His wife Jane (Kate Wetherhead) knows nothing of it; she has just given birth to their first child and is on maternity leave. Billy seeks much needed advice from his dad. The short scene does have its share of yucks, as Bill, Sr. swears he will keep this revelation private and not spill the beans to his wife Alice (Marlo Thomas). Hard as he might, Bill, Sr. can’t seem to keep anything public or private away from his prying and suspicious wife. In a perfectly calibrated scene, Alice does get the dirt pulled from her husband that all is not well in her son’s marriage, and sets about to get the full lowdown and get to the bottom of the situation.

Alice will not accept anything but a firm commitment for a family meeting, with the temptation of dinner and cheesecake to circumvent the disaster. The final third act revolves around deciphering the validity of the affair and how to handle it. Alice does of course find out her son is having an affair, and at one penultimate moment with all the family at her house blurts out the reality of the situation. Director David Saint freeze-frames this moment for an extended time, every actor with a “deer-in-the-headlights” gaze. It is an amusing conceit, as it heavily evokes a 60’s sitcom moment. The playwright has a few modest surprises up his sleeve, as these suburban folk wrestle out their demons.

If only any of this had any ring of truth to it. The lines are amusing at times. Most of the punch lines can be seem miles away. The elongated revelation of Alice’s at the 11^th hour ring oddly false, or perhaps that’s meant to be since we never fully know if the tale told to her family is real or fabricated. This at least gives the play a modicum dose of gravitas that comes out of left field.

The cast more than accommodates their roles and the two leads in particular are perfectly in sync. Ms. Thomas with her smoky and gravelly familiar voice and wide saucer eyes perfectly captures the essence of this mother in distress. Her immaculate comic timing is perfectly matched with Mr. Mullavey as her dissolute husband. The slow burn and haunted look of seeing the years slip by are encased in Mr. Mullavey’s body language and his facial tics and deadpan stares… He can communicate innumerous bits of information without speaking a word. In the lesser showy roles of son and wife Mr. Merrick and Ms. Wetherhead manage to acquit themselves with what they have been given. Ms. Wetherhead does find the shrill center of her character, and morphs into a mellower accepting wife as the play nears its end. Set designer Yoshi Tanokura gives us a plush, comfy living room set with panache. The overflowing photos on the wall confirm the loving family that resides within. The harsh unforgiving lighting by Christopher J. Bailey is perfectly suited for this sitcom…. um, I mean play. This clever little play does serve a purpose. It harks back to the days of yore, when in 90 minutes the world could seem so perfect, then become unmoored and thrown off its axis, then righted with the appropriate commercial breaks in-between, and set back on course with not much true collateral damage incurred.

The Westside Theatre, 407 W. 43^rd Street

Telecharge.com  212-239-6200

Cleverlittlelies.com

Running through January 3^rd 2016