Robert Pickens

Ryan J. Haddad’s deliciously comic but ultimately poignant "Good Time Charlie" having its world premiere at The Public Theater is his first non-monologue play. This time he uses seven actors including himself to play nine relatives in this theatrical autobiography. Ostensibly, a tribute to his gay Uncle Charlie (in actuality his father’s first cousin), it is also Haddad’s own autobiography of his early years (which eventually brought him into theater) and his immediate family. Covering the years 1976 to the present, it is a hilarious catty review of musicals and musical films as well as the more serious social mores of two generations’ attitudes towards homosexuality, that of Charlie’s generation and that of Ryan’s. The theatrical in-jokes will tickle regular theatergoers and some will get the meta theater references to "Fun Home" (whose original cast included the play’s Beth Malone and TV’s "Smash" which also include the participation of Michael Cristofer. [more]