Art of Leaving

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Aaron, a successful 59-year-old stockbroker, 25 years married, living on the Upper East Side, is in the throes of a midlife crisis. He has just finished reading self-proclaimed male happiness guru Dr. Stang’s new book Male Satisfaction After 40 and he has discovered that he has to divorce his loving wife Diana in order to ‘rekindle his male strength of purpose.’ However, Aaron has not had the courage to tell Diana yet as according Dr. Stang he has to surround himself with family members to soften the blow when he breaks the news. Hence, he has invited his 80-year-old parents Felix and Esther to come in from Long Island, and his 24-year-old son Jason and his fiancée Caitlyn, New York University grad students who are engaged to be married.

This is the clever premise of Anne Marilyn Lucas’ new play Art of Leaving which has been called a cross between Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House and the social comedies of Neil Simon. Unfortunately, wives who remain dishrags for their husband have gone out of style at least a generation ago and her hero is so obnoxious that we don’t understand why Diana put up with him for a quarter of a century. It is not as though she doesn’t have reinforcement on her job as a prized curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or famous artists as friends. Diana is flabbergasted as she has lived simply to cater to the every whim of this narcissistic and selfish individual who has kept her from six major promotions as no wife of his can work full time.

The play has an intriguing structure: each couple represents a different generation and a different view of marriage. Felix and Esther have a traditional marriage, and in the course of the play we find out how they have weathered the hurdles that have come their way, as well as some of their biggest, long-held secrets. Jason is a student of Psychology while Caitlyn is studying Critical Identity with a focus on Gender and Sexuality, not a subject that was being taught when most of us attended college. They are planning on a polygamous or open marriage although Jason is not as sold on it as he pretends to be. While Aaron made Diana give up painting when they got married (the smell affected his allergies), she has worked part time in museums for years.

Unfortunately, the play while glib and amusing has few jokes so that it cannot pass for a comedy. The reliance on Yiddish expressions while setting the milieu of a Jewish family (except for Diana who is gentile but never converted) dates the play rather than gives it atmosphere. Frank Oliva’s seemingly attractive apartment in chrome, leather, glass and grey eventually seems awkwardly situated on stage so that the characters have to climb over furniture to get from one side to the other. The bedroom seems to be a loft but this is probably because the stage it too small to depict three complete rooms.

While Broadway was once filled with plays like this a generation or two ago, Art of Leaving now seems very dated. It would have been more believable set back in an earlier decade. Matt Gehring’s direction emphasizes the sit-com nature of the play which is a mistake as it makes the proceedings seem all that much more shallow. Both Aaron and Diana are very thinly written so we learn little about their 25 year marriage except that Diana has lived her life to please her unhappy and demanding husband. Jordan Lage’s Aaron is a total egoist who is lacking in sympathy, while Audrey Heffernan Meyer’s Diana seems unbelievably naïve as to what is available to women today.

Alan Ceppos’ Felix is real but bland, under his domineering wife’s thumb. Pamela Shaw’s Esther, however, is usually over the top as the know-it-all classic Jewish stage mother, and tends to dominate every scene she is in. Brian Mason and Molly Chiffer as the younger couple don’t speak up much even though psychology and gender studies are their specialties. Chiffer does find her voice towards the very end when she realizes just how toxic the Aaron-Diana marriage is. Lara de Brujin’s costumes are appropriately contemporary casual for each age group although Esther’s white sheath makes her look somewhat overdressed for dinner at home with the family.

Molly Chiffer, Brian Mason, and Jordan Lage in a scene from Anne Marilyn Lucas’ “Art of Leaving” at The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (Photo credit: Jeremy Daniel)

Anne Marilyn Lucas’ Art of Leaving is often entertaining though it is not as dramatic as Ibsen’s A Doll’s House nor is it as funny as Neil Simon’s comedies. However, considering the divorce rate and the number of marriages in trouble these days, it could have been a great deal more pointedly satiric if the dialogue had been less clichéd and familiar.

Art of Leaving (through December 14, 2025)

Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480   W. 42^nd Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call http://www.artofleavingtheplay.com

Running time: 95 minutes without an intermission