The Disappear

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Erica Schmidt’s The Disappear is like one of those 1950s and 1960s Broadway comedies – glib, sophisticated and superficial, concerning members of the glitterati, their careers and affairs. Like those plays of the past it has a top-notch cast led by Hamish Linklater, Miriam Silverman (the 2023 Tony Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress) and Dylan Baker. It is entertaining but tries to handle too many big themes all at the same time: marriage, art and ecology, not all of which seem to work well together. It also attempts to recycle many elements from Chekhov’s The Seagull and Uncle Vanya as archetypes without thoroughly digesting them.

In a Chekhovian country house somewhere in the Hudson Valley in which the wheat grows right up to the front door in Brett J. Banakis’ lived-in looking set, the 20-year marriage of filmmaker Ben Braxton and novelist Mira Blair is crumbling: he has caught the seven year itch and wants to begin an affair with Julie Wells, a young actress he is planning to cast in his next film. However, his producer the elegant British Michael Bloom does not want her and Ben pulls his project. However, when Michael brings A-list film star Raf Night to visit for a role in the next film, Raf, a fan of Mira’s work, suggests that they film his favorite of her novels and insists she both write the screenplay and appear on set. As a result, Ben makes Julie’s involvement a condition of his working on this arrangement. Their pouty daughter Dolly looks on not very amused.

Watching these creative people misbehave is part of the fun though a great deal must be taken on faith: Julie’s tremendous talent, Raf’s inordinate fame and highly emotional depth, Ben’s genius as a filmmaker though Raf has never seen one of his movies, and that Mira’s novels earn more money than Ben’s films. However, nothing Schmidt has written for these characters demonstrates these qualities. Julie is portrayed as pretentious and overacting. Raf is so low-key it is hard to see him as having a great deal of depth on screen. With Ben’s self-dramatizing and egotistical nature, it is hard to imagine him finding time to focus on his work, while the items we hear about from Mira’s novels hardly seem like the material for best sellers. Possibly Schmidt who has directed her own play needed a second pair of eyes and ears to get her play whipped into shape.

Another inconsistency is that Mira has been aware of Ben’s affairs with his female stars over the years. So why is this time different? Although after 20 years, she may simply be tired of catering to his every whim and being expected to take care of all of the management of their lives with him contributing nothing to the chores. Ironically, Julie holds Ben off until the movie is finished, so in fact there is no affair to speak of until almost the end. For no particular reason, daughter Dolly is into saving the environment by planting trees and she discovers that both Julie and Raf are also fans of ecology.

The dialogue is often made up of clichéd aphorisms of long standing: “The point of marriage, of long marriage, is to build the future together,” “Told you honesty is over rated,” “I guess I prefer art (i.e. as compared to reality) and I guess I’d like to believe it has lasting value.” Ben’s film appears to be a combination of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, the myth of Dido and Aeneas, his previous gothic horror script, and a version of his wife’ best seller All the Silence, All the Wonder: a possible mishmash, not a formula for a box office hit.

The cast is fine at what they have been asked to do though Linklater’s Ben is not “CHARMING” as described in the script. In fact, his character is self-dramatizing, self-centered and arrogant, a total anti-hero, sort of like Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Despite this, his bravura performance is also very physical, throwing himself around his living room with abandon. Silverman as his wife Mira gives the opposite performance to the one she gave in her award-winning role in The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window: here she is understanding, caring and clearsighted. Baker as film producer Michael Bloom is a good listener as well as good at his job.

Dressed in Jennifer Moeller and Miriam Kelleher’s Little Bo Beep costumes complete with straw bonnet with strings, Madeline Brewer’s Julie is an ambitious starlet who makes herself the center of attention, flirtatious to her core. Rising film star Kelvin Harrison Jr. as A-Lister Raf Night has the gravitas of the intellectual actor though one recalls the number of actual minor film stars who passed through the various casts of the longest running comedy of the 1960s, Jean Kerr’s Mary, Mary as Dirk Winston, a British star of the first magnitude. Anna Mirodin as the 15-year-old Dolly Blair-Braxton has all the quirks of the contemporary teenager growing up in what seems like a modern menagerie.

Nevertheless, for all its flaws, The Disappear (an awkward title) is a fun show, the kind of marital comedy no one writes for the stage anymore but once populated Broadway. Under Schmidt’s direction, the cast both throw themselves into their roles (sometime literally) and appear to be enjoying themselves. If you don’t overanalyze the play’s problems you too will have a very good time.

The Disappear (extended through Sunday, February 22, 2026)

Audible Theater

Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane, between Sixth Avenue and Macdougal Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.AudiblexMinetta.com

Running time: two hours and 15 minutes including one intermission