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Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf Bring Out Truths for Our Time in an Ageless ‘Death of a Salesman’ (9 Tony nominations)
Considered Arthur Miller’s masterpiece of the average guy as a tragic figure, Death of a Salesman has been a hard sell for me as Miller’s greatest play. However, Joe Mantello’s searing direction that teases out incredible performances from Nathan Lane (Willy Loman), Laurie Metcalf (Linda Loman), Chrisopher Abbott (Biff) and Ben Ahlers (Happy), made me a convert. Presented on the cavernous stage of the Winter Garden Theatre in its sixth Broadway revival, the Loman family’s psychological travails between reality and hopeful dreams unfold their flawed humanity with pathos until August 9, 2026.
This magnificent revival in Mantello’s expansive vision conveys the characters as middle class archetypes of American citizens that are manufactured, used up and spit out by a devouring corporate culture, obsessed by success, money and status as definitions of power and greatness (“the American Dream”). Industrialization, production and “progress” are the means used to propagandize and process worker-citizens away from an appreciation of their soul worth and self identification as valuable to themselves and their families.
To underscore this overarching theme of the Lomans snared by this cultural processing with the use of the American Dream to drain their hopes, keep them ensnared and perpetuate the elusive lies of easy prosperity inferred by Willy’s Uncle Ben-Jonathan Cake (you walk into a jungle and bring out diamonds), Mantello uses a stylized set design superbly realized by Chloe Lamford. Additionally, the sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman, haunting music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, and lighting design by Jack Knowles beautifully carry Mantello’s dark, foreboding insights which the superb ensemble enlivens in a production whose like won’t be seen again.
This production of Miller’s Salesman is perfectly synchronized to reflect citizens in our country, currently under siege from the very forces which isolate the Lomans from helping each other. Set adrift in misery, loneliness, distraction and despair, they have little recourse or salvation except delusions, hallucinations and denial. Even a form of success is never enough as suggested by Ahlers’ Happy, who references a prosperous boss who builds an estate but “doesn’t have the peace of mind to live in it.”
The symbol of what made America great, the car (automobile production and its attendant feeder industries, oil, gas, rubber, etc.), becomes that which Willy chooses as his place to die. Mantello features Willy’s car as ever-present and onstage throughout. The car is where Willy spent most of his life alone, traveling through New England with his dreams, and longing of returning home to see his sons, chiefly Biff who he lives his successes through until Biff has a breakdown. At the play’s beginning it also becomes his place of terror, of failure, of disorientation where he can no longer survive for any length of time on a road trip. Finally, he converts it to his way out of a tormenting hellish life he can’t bear, that promises more hope for his family in his death.
The play opens as Lane’s Willy, exhausted and broken down, returns from his aborted sales trip and drives the car onstage into the humongous, grey space that is the Loman’s stylized home. Unlike previous revivals, this place is nothing like an American home the bank would hold in a mortgage. It is similar to an empty factory or warehouse with rectangular, peeling tiled columns and no vibrant colors. It is dimly lit with a grid of dirty window panes on the backstage wall that barely let light in.
The space is symbolic and interpretive. Far stage left is the basement with Willy’s possible instrument of suicide, the gas water heater, and downstage left is the bit of soil where Lane’s Willy hopefully plants seeds he will never see grow. The characters remain onstage, moving around uncomfortable, factory-type, metal “furniture” to define areas they set up mostly away from each other. They sometimes become inconsequential dim shadows when they don’t speak and other family members do.
Spot lit when there are interactions is Mantello’s approach. But for their interactions darkness and isolation surround them. As spots come up on the initial scene between Willy and Linda when she asks why he came back home, Biff and Happy each lie on a bench on opposite sides of the stage in their ersatz beds and bedrooms, as their parents talk “downstairs.” The spots illuminate the life and interaction of Linda and Willy to a break point, then the darkness encroaches. The symbolism is affecting and effective, revealing the disjointedness of this family, their fears, their isolation, their solitary struggles, their inability to communicate with efficacy to bring about their listener’s understanding toward change.
Willy’s dire emotional and psychic state which impacts the family is also symbolized with the set when the characters move as if in timeless space, like Uncle Ben-Jonahan Cake-who floats onstage and off, as his words float in and out of Willy’s mind. Initially, he uses Ben to inspire him, but also his words and values are a truncheon that Willy uses to bludgeon himself for his failed life. There are also the recriminating memories of guilt that devastate him and push him toward self-annihilation provoked by grown up Bernard (Michael Benjamin Washington) who asks what happened in Boston, the turning point after which Biff and Willy are separated from each other by a gulf of lies and pretenses to protect Linda and damn each other, .
Importantly, Mantello/Lamford and the creative team have created an environment of bleakness and gloom removing any sense of warmth or comfort that a homely kitchen set or living room would suggest. Indeed, Willy and his family move in this towering oppressive, dark space that crushes them but for their connection to each other, which is their real and lasting hope, if they could see it and give each other more kind words and love instead of recriminations. However, even when they argue, insult, indict or chide each other as the glorious Metcalf does in a moment-to-breathtaking-moment take down of Biff, then Happy, her scorching speeches, one about how they left Willy alone babbling in the restaurant, are better than the silent, darkness above, behind and around them.
Mantello/Lamford also use the car to travel through time into the past. For example, one of Willy’s comforting reminiscences is when Young Biff (Joaquin Consuelos) and Young Happy (Jake Termine) follow Willy’s instructions to simonize, shine and buff the car. It is the family’s prize possession that helps provide Willy’s means of support and allows them to go to Ebbets Field on a celebratory day. It represents Willy’s pride in Biff’s scholarship success, as he stands on the roof of the car, the lighting in a golden bronze to family cheers on game day. Happy, happy recollection when Willy is their fine father, Biff has the world at his feet, and Linda looks on her brood “pleased as punch,” a successful mother and wife. Even their giving neighbor Charley (the fine K. Ttodd Freeman) comes out to tease them on this greatest of days for Biff and Willy.
Lane convinces us that Willy is who he claims he is, until he isn’t. Out of the remembrances into the gloom of grey reality he tells his sons, “the woods are burning,” and Linda tells the incredulous Happy and anger-suppressing Biff their dad is dying. With a raw fierceness and edgy emotional plea, Metcalf’s Linda tells Biff and Happy that they can’t just come to visit her, because she loves Willy. “He’s the dearest man in the world to me.” Metcalf’s Linda means it and because of her strength of character and force of will, we take a second look at Willy and see him through her eyes with poignance, and weep for this desolate family.
As the play progresses, Miller via Mantello reveals, the reminiscences are in fact hallucinations that Willy uses to torment himself when Biff visits. Willy’s hallucination in the restaurant after his sons desert him is guilt-laden. He relives Biff catching him with a woman and calling him a liar. Willy knows he let his son down, but he can’t admit it and will never forgive himself for it, turning psychically sick. After that incident in Boston Biff and Willy can’t have a heart to heart. Even toward the conclusion when Biff tells his father he will never be the man Willy wants him to be, Willy can’t hear him and misunderstands.
It’s a superb theatrical moment between Lane and Abbott, who passionately steps into the heartfelt, truthful Biff, releases his anger and turns to his father. Willy, still lost, conflating past and present, incapable of recognizing Biff’s truth proclaims,”He cried to me.” In the final most dangerous of Willy’s hallucinations, Cake’s Ben agrees with Willy that Biff will be magnificent with twenty-thousand to back him. Lane’s portrayal of Willy humanizes him and makes him identifiable.
As the second brother given short shrift by the family, Ahlers Happy repeats himself to get attention and uplift Linda. His, “I’m gonna get married, mom,” is as plaintive a cry as any grown manchild’s cry is, yearning for recognition and love but feeling he is incapable of receiving it. Ahlers’ Happy is endearing and charming in a standout portrayal, I haven’t seen before. Still carrying the American Dream to “make it” after seeing what happened to his brother and father, we note his denial like Linda’s, as the inevitable comes and brings her a terrible freedom.
Death of a Salesman runs 2 hours, 50 minutes with one intermission at the Winter Garden Theater through August 9, 2026. salesmanbroadway.com.
‘Pictures From Home,’ Strong, Humorous, Heartfelt Performances Bring Depth and Nuance to Must-See Theater
How does one negotiate one’s upbringing as an adult, when one’s parents still keep them under their charge and supervision as a comforting mainstay of their relationship? How does one one respond, if the parents in their relationships with adult children default to roles of superior authority figure vs. inferior minor? The superb Pictures From Home raises and answers these questions.
Pictures From Home in its premiere at Studio 54, currently runs until April 30. Written by Sharr White (The Other Place), and directed by Bartlett Sher (To Kill a Mockingbird) it sports a tremendous all-star cast who inhabit the characters to the cellular level. The play, which encapsulates photographer Larry Sultan’s decades-long project, exploring his relationship with his parents through pictures, is a knockout. Based on Sultan’s titular photographic memoir (1992), White’s work unfolds as an intimate portrait of a family that challenges the audience to think about how we reconcile issues with our own parents that we know may never be resolved.
White’s depiction of Larry (portrayed with great sensitivity and aplomb by the marvelously versatile Danny Burstein) and his parents, as a memory play is largely thematic. The son, Burstein’s Larry perseveres in his project initially to learn about his life and relationship with his parents through the post-war pictures taken before and after they moved to Southern California. Of course his initial intentions change with the passing years he gets to know his parents from a different viewpoint.
In his quest to understand levels beyond surface identities, Larry chronicles the culture against the backdrop of family photos, videos. discussions and interviews during weekend visits (twice a month) from 1982-1992. Importantly, Burstein’s Larry discovers that the process of “information gathering” itself is wondrous, life-affirming and loving. He learns to live with the uncertainty that the truth about his and his family’s past and present is always shifting. Eventually, he realizes that this is an acceptable revelation that occurs despite his creating frustrations and annoyances for his parents and himself. Complications arise, as he explores other perspectives about them through what he hopes will become a “more objective” lens.
However, throughout the humorous and at times rancorous give and take sessions among son Larry, Dad Irving and Mom Jean (the inimitable Nathan Lane and Zoë Wanamaker) there is the inevitable acknowledgement that this is “their” family. For good or ill they have navigated the emotional and psychological shark infested waters and stuck by each other protected by an abiding, scratchy, blanket of love. Who is anyone to judge them? There’s a quote about glass houses and throwing stones somewhere in this production which White, the actors and director take out and shake up with chiding humor to “not point the finger too readily or heartily.” Judgment doesn’t apply, regarding this intimate enlivened portrait; in fact, it is disingenuous.
Indeed, we cannot look back in hindsight and determine accurately, Sharr White suggests as one of the themes of this clever production which sneaks up on you, if you allow it the grace to do so. At it strongest moments the presentation of the family dynamic, becomes like watching our own family dysfunctioning in real time. Larry’s motivations and intentions as he seeks out Irving’s and Jean’s approbation, insights and perspectives, and weathers his father’s criticism during the unfolding of the project, are right out of our own home movies. Not only are the interactions hysterical and funny, they are heartbreaking and identifiable, and at times searing.
If one is fortunate to have family, it is what all adult children (if they are honest) cannot really grasp in the fullness of its significance and meaning to their lives. We can’t even securely attribute our successes or failures to them because there is the ineffable mysterious that cannot be pinned down. And if one does attempt to acutely define what is undefinable and cover it with blame or calculation, it will be incomplete, misaligned and skewed by one’s own biases. Family relationships in all their warts, impurities and embarrassments are beautiful because they are attempts to get it right, Sharr White teases out of Larry Sultan’s photo memoir. The heartbreak of Larry, Irving and Jean is that with every imperfect interaction, they don’t quite hit the mark. That is the pain and that is the glory. At least they tried.
And just as Burstein’s Larry concludes by the end of the play (and project) and we concur as an audience watching the intimacies of what the photos reveal, family relationships, individual and combined, are infinitely complex. In that complexity, if grace is attempted, there is mirth in the clown car of family gatherings. You have to laugh. If you don’t find the humor, you weep, and of course in the humor, there has been much weeping and pain to allow it to rise to the levity of wit and wisdom.
As Larry explores and unravels each home movie or picture, discussing it with Jean and Irving, he chooses to accept and love as his parents have and still love, despite the sorrows and pains. Underneath there are happinesses. And this is a treasure worth more than the profits that Larry gains when he publishes his photo memoir which receives wide acclaim and Irving’s praise and the relief that his son’s visits have accomplished “something worthwhile.” The time spent with his parents and their generosity in allowing him to needle and prod them could never be fashioned any other way. The bond they form holds no regrets because in due season, as Wanamaker’s Jean underscores in the poignant scene with Burstein’s Larry, she can’t live forever, though in his child-like heart he wishes she could.
Of course we “get” her question to him, “Why would I want to?” That one of the reasons why Larry might be doing this project, to redeem the time with his parents, turns out to be his finest reason for its accomplishment. Wanamaker and Burstein render every nuance and feeling out of their scene together which is lovely and outright smashing.
Thomas Wolf proclaimed in You Can’t Go Home Again, that you can’t return to the past, for time’s momentum dissolves what was into inaccurate memory. Likewise, there is something greatly tragic in viewing photographs to jar one’s memories and find meaning which can never be fully realized. For the faded photographs often capture a brand, a statement to cover over truths with impressions. However, as a photographer whose life is made full attempting to capture timeless compositions, Burstein’s Larry eschews Wolf’s adjuration and tries to discover meaning and substance from the impressions. And he doesn’t quite succeed to his liking, yet it is magnificent that he tries.
Time and again he visits Jean and Irving, flying from his professorship, wife and children to his old homestead in Southern California (neatly effected by Michael Yeargan’s set design). As he interviews his parents and reviews again and again various photos from his childhood to capture the cultural zeitgeist and look for new interpretations of his life and parents beyond his memories from a child’s perspective, he concludes points, then argues with his father who disagrees with him. Ingeniously, he examines and reflects upon their poses, facial expressions, gestures, activities, captured in the still point, directing his parents toward a new interpretation. It is a humorous fact that the photos Larry selects for his book are precisely the ones that his parents and particularly his father dislike because they are not posed to perfection or portray a flattering image.
In the dialogue centering on the photos,White has given the actors the grist to take off into the amazing territory of nuance to bring out sub rosa emotions, defense mechanisms and disclosures from each family member. That Jean is not as forthcoming as her husband, but is nurturing and supportive of her son speaks volumes. She is wary and deeply loves and understands her husband’s weaknesses and defensiveness, though she gets fed up with him at times. He counts on her understanding and is the one to affirm his love for her toward the conclusion.
Through each of their interactions that represent the many visits from Larry, White creates vignettes that are thematic. In one when Lane’s Irving hysterically hobbles about with an injury we never learn how he received, the scene moves to an unexpected and poignant end-stop about aging. Lane’s Irving effects the emotional arc of the scene with incredible moment and a cry from the heart that is tremendously moving.
In another interaction Jean’s growing dementia is subtly revealed in her panic about where she put various items. From the beginning of the play to the conclusion, Wanamaker subtly reveals Jean’s worsening condition. If one is not focusing, one might miss this incredible aspect of her performance. Wannamaker reveals Jean’s memory decline, nervous fidgeting and sometime irascibility, which Lane’s Irving discounts in the latter scenes that represent the end of the decade. We understand why Irving prefers not to note this as we look at the photo projections of them dressed to the nine’s decades earlier. Though we laugh, we get the undertones when Irving asks why Larry can’t use this photo where Jean is just stunning and Irving is certainly her inferior in the looks department.
The photos and videos blown up and projected on the set’s back wall become the backdrop upon which the actors acutely portray these individuals so that we become acquainted with them as archetypes with whom we identify. Thanks to 59 Productions these are integral to the themes in the vignettes. And they make all the more vital and poignant the last lines of the play when we discover that Jean dies after they move to Palm Springs (something which Larry disapproved of more for himself than for his parents). And as Burstein’s Larry proclaims his father’s illness and his death, his last lines fade and a visual of the photographer Larry Sultan is projected. Larry and Irving died in the same year, 2009. One cannot help but be stirred looking at his beautiful picture as a crystallization of his ancestry and his honest tribute to his parents in text and photos and this play’s messages of love, family, “seizing the day” and “memento mori.”
Kudos to Jennifer Moeller (costume design) Jennifer Tipton (lighting design) Scott Lehrer and Peter John Still (sound design) and Tommy Kurzman (wig/hair and makeup design) and of course 59 Productions projection design for bringing to life with the actors’ prodigious efforts the director’s stunning vision..
Pictures From Home is a must-see for the performances, the themes, the direction, the complexity and nuance of the play itself. For tickets go to their website, https://picturesfromhomebroadway.com/
Tribeca Film Festival Review 2018: ‘Every Act of Life,’ Looking Into the Brilliant Terrence McNally
(L to R): Director Jeff Kaufman, Terrence McNally, ‘Every Act of Life,’2018 Tribeca FF World Premiere Special Screening and Q & A, Moderator Frank Rich, unpictured (Carole Di Tosti),
Terrence McNally is a theatrical force of nature, though with his incredible humility in an age of self-promotion, he would be the last to admit it. With a career spanning six decades and major, ground-breaking successes on Broadway and Off, in film and television, and multiple theater awards every decade, the man is a dynamo, beloved by actors whose careers he has vaulted, actors whom he collaborates with in a symbiotic relationship again and again. At 80, he is still working, attending productions (I saw him in the audience of the musical production of the most Tony nominated musical SpongeBob SquarePants this summer.) and launching off into new projects, even as I write this.
The World Premiere Every Act of Life directed and written by Jeff Kaufman was given a special screening at Tribeca Film Festival 2018, with luminaries, actors and McNally himself attending for the Q and A afterward. In this formidable documentary about a formidable American playwright, Kaufman presents McNally’s career and personal life. From start to finish Every Act of Life is an intriguing and well-thought-out chronicle cobbled together with interviews, archived photos, video clips, well-researched facts, details, memorabilia and well-placed commentary by actors, directors, producers and McNally himself. The documentary is especially revealing in its presentation of how one individual’s love and passion for the theater, opera, music and art has impacted our culture and brought us together in a forward momentum of shared communication and understanding.
Tyne Daly (‘Mothers and Sons’ and ‘Master Class’), Nathan Lane (‘Love! Valor! Compassion!’ ‘The Lisbon Traviata,’ ‘ It’s Only a Play’)2018 Tribeca FF World Premiere and Special Screening and Q & A (Carole Di Tosti)
Beginning with his early plays and traveling right up to his most recent work, Kaufman lays out the seminal moments and turning points that have slowly fostered the personality and character of this mild-mannered and charmingly authentic persona that McNally is today. Early influences on his life McNally credits to his English teacher in Corpus Christi who encouraged him to write and attend schools outside of the area. But his love of musicals and Broadway, were initially inspired by his parents, transplanted New Yorkers, who brought him all the way from Texas to New York to see a few smash musicals with towering figures like Gertrude Lawrence in The King and I and Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun.
Terrence McNally, ‘Every Act of Life,’ 2018 Tribeca FF World Premiere Special Screening and Q & A (Carole Di Tosti)
The excitement and enchantment of live theater musicals were imprinted on his memory. And this love abides with him to this day as he continues to collaborate on musicals writing the book for numerous hits like The Kiss of the Spider Woman (1992), Ragtime (1996), The Full Monty (2000), The Visit (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2011), Anastasia (2017). He has also sharpened his wits and taken up collaborating on opera, for example in 2015, the production of Great Scott (music by Jake Heggie), premiered at Winspear Opera House in Dallas, Texas. He is a veritable tornado when it comes to writing new plays and collaborating with composers on musicals and operas.
Chita Rivera appeared in McNally’s ‘The Rink,’ (1984) ‘The Kiss of the Spider Woman,’ (1992, 93, 94) ‘The Visit,’ (2004). Tribeca FF 2018, World Premiere Screening and Q & A, ‘Every Act of Life.’Chita Rivera appears in Kaufman’s film about McNally. Here Chita Rivera appears at a 2018 LPTW event (Carole Di Tosti)
Following his English teacher’s advice, McNally attended Columbia University and was further shepherded by professors like Lionel Trilling for literature and Andrew Chiappe who steered him in the basics by having McNally and others read every work by Shakespeare in the order of their composition. After Columbia, McNally through a serendipitous introduction via The Actor’s Studio, cruised with John Steinbeck and family around the world as he tutored Steinbeck’s two young sons. This was another incredible experience which was to shape McNally’s writing career and broaden his horizons as well as establish his relationship with Steinbeck who inspired his writing. From these adventures he later fashioned the first act of And Things That Go Bump in the Night. Additionally, Steinbeck asked him to write a libretto for a musical adaptation of his novel East of Eden. One doesn’t know what one can do until a great American novelist like John Steinbeck asks you to do it.
F. Murray Abraham, ‘Every Act of Life,’ 2018 Tribeca FF World Premiere and Special Screening and Q & A (Carole Di Tosti)
Back in New York City, McNally used his connections at the Actor’s Studio to begin to workshop his nascent one-act plays. And it was in New York that he met the brilliant playwright Edward Albee who was just coming into his own. After a four-year tempestuous relationship during which Albee wrote The American Dream and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, they parted ways and McNally’s career began to take off gradually in theater, television and in film as he wrote screenplays for versions of his works first performed on Broadway and Off Broadway.
(L to R): Terrence McNally, Edward Albee, ‘Every Act of Life,’ 2018 Tribeca FF World Premiere Screening and Q & A (Carole Di Tosti)
Various tidbits appear in Kaufman’s documentary that fascinate. Some of the impressions are telling. He became addicted to alcohol and at a time when no one could admit to being gay, McNally confronted the oppressions of the culture and created some of the most insightful, poignant and endearing works related to the LGBT community and relatives confronting the AIDS epidemic. These include the TV miniseries Andre’s Mother for which he won an Emmy and later his Mothers and Sons starring Tyne Daly based upon the miniseries. Additionally, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, as well as an inside look at gay relationships for which he won his second Tony Award, Love! Valor! Compassion! also feature topics about confronting gender prejudice.
Joe Mantello, ‘Every Act of Life,’ 2018 Tribeca FF World Premiere Screening and Q & A (Carole Di Tosti)
Always concerned about the deep side of the human condition and striving above it, McNally first landed on the map when he was recognized for his portrayal of female-male relationships among the working classes (Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune) which was adapted into a screenplay starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer. McNally’s versatility and humanity encompasses play topics that run the continuum. What is most important to him is human connections and the realization that we are together in this “thing” referred to as life. The beauty of our ability to connect, express love, overcome personal issues and adversity, with an assist from art and theater makes all the difference in discovering our purpose and fulfillment.
McNally’s dogged fight for LGBTQ rights at a time when it was most unfashionable and nearly anathema is an incredible achievement, considering the forces and money behind the attempt to liquify LGBTQ rights in the noxious march toward inhumanity and darkness led by the political conservative right-wing. Kaufman highlights the struggle. He also reveals how McNally overcame his addiction to alcohol and on that subject includes an amazing anecdote. Angela Lansbury’s love and honesty prompted her to speak directly to McNally to the effect that he must stop destroying himself. Indeed, she feared this most talented playwright, librettist and screenwriter would die an early death. Her influence and other factors eventually sent him down the road to wellness, where others were not as willfully fortunate.
What I appreciate in the film is McNally’s candor in discussing his “flops.” Of course, one might say that there are no flops in a playwright’s repertoire, only stepping stones which help them achieve their hard won success.
2018 Tribeca FF World Premiere Screening and Q & A, ‘Every Act of Life,’ (L to R): Jeff Kaufman, Terrence McNally, Tyne Daly, Nathan Lane, Joe Mantello, F. Murray Abraham (Carole Di Tosti)
Kaufman highlights McNally’s award-winning work (the musicals- The Kiss of the Spider Woman-1992 and Ragtime-1997 and his plays, Love! Valor! Compassion!-1994, Master Class-1995 and Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams-2005). The most incredible feature of this segment of the documentary is the commentary by living legends and McNally friends and collaborators, Chita Rivera, Nathan Lane, John Glover, Tyne Daly, John Kander, F. Murray Abraham, Joe Mantello, Angela Lansbury, Christine Baranski, Audra McDonald and many more. Indeed, the film is a who’s who of McNally’s posse, as well as a chronicle of his prodigious work ethic and love of theater, opera, ballet and music. His talents and breadth of knowledge about the Arts are absolutely staggering. And Kaufman gives us a historical perspective that is continually fresh and exciting.
Terrence McNally, ‘Every Act of Life,’ 2018 Tribeca FF World Premiere Screening and Q & A, (photo courtesy of the film)
I loved this film. I am familiar with McNally’s work having seen a number of his musicals and comedies on Broadway and Off. I split my sides enjoying them. However, Kaufman digs deep into the revelation of the anointed genius of this most wonderful of playwrights who connects the heavens to humanity with his words, impressions and inspirations, and joins us together in what can be compared to a holy act of communion in the theater. The film is a must see, and you will especially enjoy hearing how McNally and friends worked together to create some of the finest, most enduring works of American theater which in the future will surely be identified as classics.
‘Every Act of Life,’ Q and A, Tribeca FF 2018 with (L to R) Jeff Kaufman, Terrence McNally, Tyne Daly, Nathan Lane, Joe Mantello, F. Murray Abraham, moderated by Frank Rich who is not pictured (Carole Di Tosti)
Epilogue
After the World Premiere Screening there was a Q and A moderated by Frank Rich, who was a longtime critic of theater at The New York Times. McNally made an incredible admission during the Q and A. Even though he has a prodigious body of work trailing in his wake, he never really considered himself a playwright or a successful one at that, until a few years ago. I was gobsmacked. Such is the talent and evolving genius of this artist.
That Frank Rich was moderating individuals he has sometimes dunned in his previous job as New York Times Theater critic was a bit of an irony. He long held sway as THE Times CRITIC until 2011. Often he was acerbic and unwieldy in his self-aggrandizement and pretensions to be THE VOICE of theater, backed by the “heft” of The Times. After I accomplished some gentle research for this review, I discovered a note in Wikipedia on Kiss of the Spider Woman (musical) that bears sounding since the main subject of this film is American Theater and Terrence McNally as one of the fountains where we might go for a revitalizing drink..
It seems that in 1990 Kiss of the Spider Woman was being workshopped at “New Musicals” at the Performing Arts Center SUNY at Purchase. New Musicals‘ goal was to create, develop and provide a working home for sixteen new musicals over four years. When New York critics heard that the play was being workshopped in its initial production, they wanted to see it. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be persuaded not to review it despite the fact that producers, etc., were testing the waters to see what needed ironing out. Frank Rich and other critics filed “mostly negative reviews” of this initial workshopping of Kiss of the Spider Woman. Sadly, New Musicals, whose mission was honorable and vital for American theater and especially New York Theater, blew out and folded after the fiasco with Kiss. Don’t get me started on the state of American Theater and why it is that way.
Thankfully, two years later a producer developed Kiss of the Spider Woman. It went on in Toronto and The West End where it won An Evening Standard. It finally came back to the US where it received 7 Tony Awards and 3 Drama Desks and ran 904 performances, despite Rich’s reviews. Ultimately, the American public became the arbiter of the production.
American Theater has lost ground for many reasons and indeed, the gatekeepers, critics and money people have, for all intents and purposes, shot it to hell and drained its lifeblood. With the rise of Social Media, for good or ill, digital platforms and word of mouth continue to lift up productions so that their lasting value might be revealed to give them staying power. But it is enough? Rich went on to feather his own nest. Kiss of the Spider Woman found its audience. New Musicals is no more. And so it goes. In light of these events Every Act of Life is an important documentary about the history of American theater, and a master creator who has thrived in spite of changing times.
CAROLE DI TOSTI 