ALL MY SONS From left, Stephen Payne, Josh Charles, Armie Hammer and Paul Schneider in their Christmas pajamas in "Straight White Men."
EVERYBODY LOVES "Straight White Men," Second Stage's sexy new production at the Hayes Theater. The New York Times made it a Critic's Pick, calling it "undeniably powerful." Variety called it a "super-smart production" of a "cutting but deeply humane satire." The Hollywood Reporter called it "the sort of thoughtful, challenging and original work too rarely seen on Broadway these days." But are we absolutely clear on the playwright Young Jean Kim's message? The lone dissenting voice, Hilton Als in The New Yorker, dismissed it as a "simplistic morality play."
My press-night guest, BP, and I, were distracted. We admitted up front that while we were glad about the great reviews and hoped for a brilliant and meaningful evening of theater, our baser selves were most excited about being in the same space with Armie Hammer. Even though, as we quickly calculated at Sardi's upstairs bar afterward, we are both old enough to be his, um, much, much older sister.
AWWWWW When all the grown-up kids come home for the holidays, somebody has to sleep on the family-room sofa. Hammer is watched over by Kate Bornstein and Ty Defoe.
FRANKLY, WHILE I had a great time during the first hour or so of "Straight White Men" (it's an hour and a half long), I was also a little worried that there wasn't much here.
The setup is simple. It's Christmas. Dad (Stephen Payne) is widowed now, and his three adult sons are all here with him -- in this quintessentially Midwestern house -- for the big holiday. The women in their lives (ex-wives, girlfriends) are elsewhere. And they're having way too much fun acting like the little boys they kind of wish they still were.
BOARD GAME The sons prove they're not completely clueless by playing Privilege, a Monopoly-/Careers-like game that punishes white men for having been born with advantages.
The three actors are elating and elated, released from the responsibilities of their grown-up lives for a few days and behaving as if they were 12 years old again. Drew (Hammer) sings "I'm a Little Airplane" to his brother Jake (Josh Charles) just to be obnoxious. They all do a Ku Klux Klan version of the Broadway title song "Oklahoma!" (The spelling out at the end goes "O-K-K-K.") When the holiday pie is served, they eat it en masse, with four spoons, straight out of the pie plate.
And that's why we love straight white men. Aren't they precious? Aren't they childlike while, in the rest of their lives, they're responsible authors (Drew) or lawyers (Jake)? Isn't it cute that Dad has developed a puffin fetish? (The dangers of public television.)
MAN-SPLAINING Hammer and Payne telling Schneider, right, what he's doing wrong. Is it any of their business?
EVERYTHING IS CUTE, until Matt (Paul Schneider), in the middle of a group Chinese-food binge, suddenly bursts into tears. What's wrong? Let's not ask. Let's not tell.
When the subject finally sees the light of day, the other three men come up with their own explanations. Maybe he's worried about his longstanding student-loan debt. Maybe he's trying to be noble. And none of their theories allow Matt to make his own choices in life. The problem, as three characters see it, is that Matt is underemployed. He was the Harvard-educated, Peace Corps-savior type, and now he's living with his father and has chosen basically to work as an office temp at a community organization. "I'm not gonna watch you destroy your life," Drew shouts at him.
Kudos to Anna D. Shapiro (in photo, with her Tony for "August: Osage County"), for a directing style that finds humor in the oddest places, then goes straight to the sins we commit against one another, without skipping a beat. Why is the scene of one brother vacuuming up the spilled egg nog hilarious? Why is the sight of three grown men dancing like goofy teenagers joyous? Why does Dad suddenly reconsider how much he's enjoyed having Matt at home?
I still don't quite understand the other two characters. Kate Bornstein, as Person in Charge 1, describes herself as nonbinary. Ty Defoe, who plays Person in Charge 2, is a Native American with two spirits (that's a gender in itself). They introduce the play, and I somehow expected them to have a role in the action (even if they were unseen spirits). But the most we see is their looking over a sleeping Drew like guardian angels.
Lee (in photo), the Korean-American playwright, is an Obie winner whose past works include "We're Gonna Die," "Untitled Feminist Show" and "Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven" (According to several sources, this is the first play by an Asian woman to be produced in a Broadway theater. AFT.)
Lee has a good deal to say: Maybe everybody can't live up to their potential. Maybe they don't want to. Sometimes egg nog out of a carton is fine -- delicious, in fact. So what if the artificial tree's lights don't all light up? As Matt says, "Most people aren't that good at most things." What's wrong with that being true?
"Straight White Men," Hays Theater, 240 West 44th Street; 2st.com 1 hour 30 minutes (no intermission). Opened on July 23. Limited run; closes on Sept. 9 .
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DIDJA SEE .......
The Press Nights fall theater preview? (The hookers are noble, and so are the fact checkers.)
Booze on Stage, Part 4: "A Streetcar Named Desire"? (Who's the biggest drunk, Blanche or Stanley?)
https://www.pressnights.com/latest-stories/2018/7/20/booze-on-stage-a-streetcar-named-desire
All about the good parts of "This Ain't No Disco"? (For one thing, Andy Warhol is the good guy.)
https://www.pressnights.com/latest-stories/2018/7/20/this-aint-no-disco-at-the-atlantic
Oh, and this swell New York Times piece by Alexis Soloski about the guy who plays the dad?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/theater/stephen-payne-straight-white-men-broadway-understudy.html