From L to R: Bentley Summerhays (Steven Boyer) and Dan Daily (John Tarleton
Photos by Sam Hough)
In the letters Mrs. Patrick Campbell exchanged for years with George Bernard Shaw during their unique relationship she called Misalliance his best play and Shaw was not averse to referring to the play as a masterpiece demurring only in that it was a one act play three hours long. Now, that marvelous Pearl Company who are giving us this delicious performance have found a logical, amusing and intriguing way to divide the play into two halves in a manner that Shaw himself would probably have approved. It’s been a dozen years since we last saw a production of Misalliance in New York City on or near the Broadway area and one cannot help wondering why, why, why do not we have Shaw not only this season but every season. And Misalliance? It certainly ought to be in front of us again and again because it is emphatically in front of just about everything else in town.
How could it be otherwise? Shaw’s play, after 100 years, with its off kilter views on love, on marriage, on politics, on religion, on culture, on class, on parents, on children, to name a few of the many targets all in this single magnum opus manages also to upset the theatrical apple cart of form and structure all the while being so epigrammatically funny and witty you barely relish one gulp of Shavian dialogue before the next comes flying at your head, ready for the next gulp. It is because Shaw devils you by setting up one brief so nicely you think that little else can be said in that corner, whereupon he proceeds to tear it down so pleasurably you’re persuaded to its opposite just like that. It’s a see saw of fun and challenges which runs the gears of his play, an engine of wit and intelligence that never ceases to entertain.
Designer Bill Clarke puts us deftly, immediately right in the middle of an Edwardian summer house, the awning swing, the potted plants, the vaguely oriental tiled floor, the drinks table, floor vases, coat rack, Chinese desk, assorted wickerish chairs messy in a nice way, comfortable. We are beautifully primed. And when everybody arrives at his or her turn in Edwardian summery clothing, thanks to designer Liz Covey, it feels also comfortable. So that when the little clashes and arguments Shaw uses to get things going and the spills of exposition flow so effortlessly as nowadays they do not, dramatically, we are in the master’s hands and off for the kind of ride the theater can provide as nowhere else. John Tarleton, (Bradford Cover) cannot abide his sister’s suitor, Bentley Summerhays,(Steven Boyer) a pusillanimous aristocrat far brainier than he and an utter baby. Bentley wishes to marry the lovely Hypatia (Lee Stark) in order to get his hands on the wealth and the business of her father, Mr. Tarleton,(Dan Dailey) self made millionaire many times over. Underwear, you know. Money in it. Tarleton Senior now endows libraries, flits from one new idea to another, is full of piss and vinegar and expresses all. Hypatia has turned down all her suitors, including even Bentley’s father, Lord Summerhays (Dominic Cuskern) because they none of them have any brains, and Summerhays pere is too old. She is dying to get out from under the family weight of propriety, wealth, privilege, and the rakish possibilities of upper class living with Bentley are a lure. Mrs. Bentley (Robin Leslie Brown) plays the lady of the manor but knows she is posing and prefers her own plebian roots. Into this simmer of mixed emotions and ideas drops—an airplane—smack into the green house, its pilot, Joey Percival (Michael Brusasco) just what Hypatia wants – and pursues. His passenger Lina Szczepanowska (Erika Rolfsrud) a self proclaimed free woman, acrobat, dominatrix, proceeds to take over wherever she can. Mrs. Brown is appalled.
We not done. Into this happy breeding ground enters “John Brown” (Sean McNall) brandishing a gun. He is going to kill Mr. Tarleton for ruining his mother, then kill himself. Whereupon Shaw circumlocutes about sex so prettily you have to laugh. Director Jeff Steitzer, who is making his New York debut after 35 years directing all over the country, could hardly get off to a better start locally. He has elicited fine performances from every member of his cast. He makes directing Shaw look easy. T’ain’t so. I hope he sticks around.
New York City Center, Stage 2. 131 West 55th Street. Tickets: $40,Tue, Wed, Thu, $50 Fri, Sat, Sun. Tue, Thu, Fri, Sat 7:30 pm, Wed, Sat, Sun 2:30 pm. Rush, Youth, Senior tickets at lower rates at box office 1 hour before curtain. 212-581-1212. nycitycenter.org.