Theatre in Review: Orphans (Gerald S. Schoenfeld Theatre)

	Alec Baldwin. Photo: Joan Marcus

Orphans, an Off Broadway hit in 1985 and missing from New York ever since, is mostly interesting as a commentary on Broadway's star-crazy ways. The production exists solely because the producer assembled a package that included Alec Baldwin and Shia LaBeouf, but things unraveled when our old friend "artistic differences" asserted itself and LaBeouf exited in a flurry of tweets, anonymous reports, Internet speculation, and talk show appearances. Whether these events had a significant effect on the production's development, we may never know. It is certain, however, that Orphans, a play about feral youths and ersatz father figures, is hard to justify as anything other than a star vehicle. And if you don't have the right stars, the play's seams are embarrassingly evident.

In its heyday, Orphans was celebrated mostly for Gary Sinise's production, which offered New Yorkers a tantalizing glimpse of Steppenwolf Theatre Company's galvanic performance style. As Frank Rich wrote, "It is riveting to watch the evening's three stunning actors -- Kevin Anderson, Terry Kinney, and John Mahoney -- rip themselves apart with a raw ferocity that is Steppenwolf's answer to the esthetics of rock and roll." You won't find anything of the kind under Daniel Sullivan's rather sedate direction, although Tom Sturridge makes an impression, leaping from couch to tabletop and crab-walking down the stairs, as Phillip, one of two brothers living in a dilapidated North Philadelphia house.

Phillip is a kind of all-purpose misfit; he appears variously to be autistic and/or learning-disabled; he is also violently agoraphobic, and his reading abilities are apparently limited to the labels of food products. (No great skill is required, since his diet consists entirely of StarKist tuna and Hellman's mayonnaise.) Phillip is kept by his brother, Treat, a petty criminal with an explosive temper who robs his marks at knifepoint. While Treat plies his seedy trade, Phillip stays at home, watching television, staring out the window, and hiding in a closet that contains a coat belonging to the young men's long-gone mother. (No explanation is offered for the absence of either parent.)

Trouble arrives in the form of Harold, a businessman Treat brings home in a state of high inebriation and toting a briefcase loaded with valuable stocks and bonds. Before Treat can, as they say, maximize their potential, everything is turned upside down: Harold quickly graduates from prisoner to head of the household, exerting his special brand of parental guidance over the brothers. Treat quickly becomes Harold's assistant, making deliveries of an unspecified, but clearly criminal, nature. Harold showers Phillip with affection, gifting him with a pair of yellow loafers and encouraging him to venture outside. Harold himself is an orphan -- he offers maudlin descriptions of his youth in a Chicago institution -- and his creepy, manipulative interest in Phillip and Treat makes for a potentially alluring mystery. (He also refers to the brothers as "Dead End Kids," a '30s film reference that always gets a rise out of Treat, who doesn't realize how accurate it is.)

Frank Rich correctly diagnosed Orphans as a cross between True West and The Caretaker, and it's possible that, played with greater tension, it might still cast a spell. But Baldwin, who stars as Harold, goes for laughs, delivering his lines in that overripe, overly knowing manner that has made him such a favorite on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock. (He used this approach, to equally deleterious effect, a few years back in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of Entertaining Mr. Sloan.) Baldwin does get his laughs, but at a big price: His approach undermines Ben Foster's work as Treat, turning the younger man, who should be a ticking bomb of violent emotions, into a comic stooge. The scene in which we first see the transformed household, with Harold serving up a pot of bouillabaisse to Treat when he arrives home from a long day at work, dressed in a business suit, plays like the pilot for a new Fox sitcom. The next scene, in which Harold tries to train Treat to control his temper, is pure vaudeville.

This approach leads one to question situations that should remain teasing enigmas if Orphans is going to work as drama: Who is Harold and why is he so interested in Phillip and Treat? Why does Treat change his personality so completely and so quickly under Harold's influence? How did the brothers end up living alone in that house? The play climaxes in a flurry of disclosures -- including an out-of-left-field revelation about Phillip -- that further convince that Orphans is a thoroughly manufactured, and secondhand, piece of dramatic construction.

Absent a strong directorial vision, the other actors fend for themselves as best they can. Foster makes a strong enough impression in the first scene but, after becoming the butt of Harold's jokes, never recovers a significant sense of menace. Sturridge is by far the most impressive of the three, using repetitive gestures and a permanent air of distraction to forge a coherent character out of a collection of psychological tics. He earns honest laughs from Phillip's attempts at behaving according to Harold's rules -- pivoting himself off the stairs in slow motion, rather that leaping like a wild animal -- and he conveys real terror when faced with the possibility of walking out the door for the first time in years.

John Lee Beatty has also supplied an impressively distressed living room setting, with its faded wallpaper and various stains and layers of grime; however, the second act reveal, when Harold has tarted up the place with tacky new furniture, is one more sight gag in a play that is already working too hard for laughs. Pat Collins' lighting deftly reframes the set according to each scene's time of day; she also adds to the set's pervasive air of melancholy and neglect. Jess Goldstein's costumes seem accurate to the play's mid-'80s time frame -- especially those wide-lapelled suits of the era -- and Peter Fitzgerald's sound design provides bursts of metal rock between the scenes.

This is the second production in a row at the Schoenfeld of an '80s play directed by Dan Sullivan, which, despite a reputation as stark drama, has been tilted toward broad comedy by its star. (The previous entry was Glengarry Glen Ross, with Al Pacino getting Neil Simon-style laughs out of David Mamet's script.) Based on the audience's reaction at the performance I attended, it's an approach that satisfies fans who want to see their favorite stars strut their stuff. As a theatrical approach, however, it's worrisome, to say the least.--David Barbour