October 9, 2014 | 07:00PM PT by Marilyn Stassio
Reposted from Variety.com
Nobody does mean-nasty-vicious like Terrence McNally, bless his black heart. The pitiless playwright has exhumed “It’s Only a Play,” his 1986 love-hate letter to those big babies who work and play on Broadway, and updated it for today — and for the timely if schmaltzy reunion of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. The comedy’s slight plot, about the high drama (and low comedy) of the opening night of a new Broadway show, is still a trifle. But the well-aimed and highly personal zingers are more malicious, and delicious, this time out.
The setup for this showbiz comedy is perfect: The producer, playwright, director and star of a new Broadway show, along with friends and foes, are huddled upstairs in the producer’s townhouse, anxiously awaiting the reviews, while a raucous opening-night party rages downstairs.
After an initial false step in 1978 (when the show, then called “Broadway, Broadway,” flopped out of town), the concept clicked in 1982, when the show was retooled and re-launched Off Off Broadway by the Manhattan Punch Line. It worked just as well in 1986, when Manhattan Theater Club picked up the production for its City Center main stage. And since the more things change in this business, the more they stay the same, McNally’s original blueprint still works just fine in helmer Jack O’Brien’s snappy production.
O’Brien lets us know right at the top of the show that we’re in for some good times. One big tip is his savvy casting of Micah Stock as Gus P. Head, the clueless innocent who has been hired to collect the guests’ coats, but hopes that one of the famous among them will recognize his hidden theatrical talents. Stock is a natural comic actor, with his lanky frame and hilarious deadpan expression, and he makes an exciting Main Stem debut as this dim yokel. “This town’s gonna eat him alive,” someone predicts.
Gus is on coat duty in the producer’s bedroom and is seriously starstruck by all the theater royalty at the party. He identifies them all when he tosses their coats (witty concoctions by costumer Ann Roth) onto the king-sized bed: Tommy Tune’s impossibly long fur number is the first sight gag to get a solid laugh. One by one, all the Broadway shows, from “The Lion King” to “Rock of Ages,” are represented — and impaled with one of the scribe’s brilliant one-liners.
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At the heart of the humor is the sublime narcissism of the professional players and their honest conviction that nothing matters except the theater. Certainly not those real-life horrors reported on the television news shows that James impatiently cuts off while waiting for Roma Torres’ all-important TV review from NY1. So laugh if you must — and you really must laugh at McNally’s unquenchable wit — but those sloppy-kiss tributes to the theater delivered by Peter and James are deeply felt and honestly moving. And if you don’t share the gooey sentiments, you really shouldn’t be at this show.