Theater Review: The Assembled Parties

The Parties Assemble, but Don't Do Much Else
By Lauren Yarger
I am not a fan of plays that make me work. I want to go to the theater and be entertained or thoroughly swept into the action/emotions on stage. I don't like trying to figure out who everyone is, why they are on the stage and why I should care. I also don't like feeling that  am the only reviewer not in love with what they are seeing, but most of those thoughts were my reaction to Richard Greenberg's new play The Assembled Parties getting a run on Broadway by Manhattan Theatre Club.

It stars Judith Light, one of my favorite actresses, who doesn't disappoint. She's wise-cracking, New-York Jewish-accented Faye, a member of an odd upper west side family that's the standard of most plays -- dysfunctional. She's the wife of Mort (Mark Blum), the man she was forced to marry when she got pregnant with their now grown and totally unambitious daughter, Shelley (Lauren Blumfield). Everyone either tolerates or appears not to like everyone else.

They come to visit her brother, Ben (Jonathan Walker) and his wife, Julie (Jessica Hecht) on Christmas Day, 1980 at their 14-room apartment (why Jews are celebrating Christmas isn't quite clear). Ben and Julie's young son,Timmy (Alex Dreier), is abed with a cold while older son,  Scotty (Jake Silbermann), has invited college friend Jeff (Jeremy Shamos) home for the holiday.

Julie, a former movie star, and speaking in some sort of voice that sounds like she's still tying to sound like a character, is a throw back to more elegant, less concerned times, and Jeff is clearly smitten. Faye is concerned about her 87-year-old mother who is failing and whom Ben refuses to visit in the nursing home. Suddenly there's some intrigue involving a family necklace and blackmail. But only a little -- and never fully explained.....

Fast forward 20 years to Christmas 2000. The husbands are dead, Faye surprises herself by actually missing Mort and Jeff, who still cares for Julie, tries to convince young Tim, now grown (and also played by Silberman), to spend more time with his mother, whose health is failing. So is her bank account. Her protected view of the world doesn't comprehend the cost of continuing to rent the Central Park West property, which is falling into disrepair, but Jeff and Faye step in to keep her comfortable and enable her to remain in her own gentler world, which includes wearing her mother's vintage dresses (Jane Greenwood designs the lovely costumes).

All of that action (and I uses that term generously) takes place on a revolving set (designed by Santo Loquasto) which cleverly shows us family members conversing in one room while other members go about their business, or overhear conversations by other members. Lynne Meadow directs.

In all fairness, most of the comments I heard from critics and audience members included the words "moving," "touching," "funny." I felt I must have missed something, because I wouldn't have used any of those terms to describe this work by Greenberg (Breakfast at Tiffany's; Take Me Out).

A woman saying her husband is "just the most wretched man who ever drew breath" got big laughs. To me it was just sad.

The parties are assembled (really don't like that title), but that's about it. For some reason, these folks just didn't click for me.

The Assembled Parties has been extended twice, through July 7, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th St., NYC. Tickets and info: http://www.manhattantheaterclub.org/

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