Theatre in Review: Black Tie (Primary Stages/59E59) For someone whose great subject is the decline and fall of an entire way of life, A. R. Gurney has provided us with steady amusement for the better part of three decades. He shows no sign of flagging invention in Black Tie, in which the manners and mores of three generations are juxtaposed to delectable comic effect. The prolific Gurney often turns out two or three works in a single season, and, once again, Primary Stages gets the cream of this year's crop. The action unfolds in the room of a second-rate hotel in the Adirondacks. (John Arnone's set design nails every detail of the place, from the varnished knotty-pine walls to the tacky plaid furniture and not-quite matching accessories.) It is occupied by Curtis, a chipper middle-aged business- and family man who is dressing for dinner. For the occasion, he is donning a tuxedo -- the correct term for which, he is reminded by the spirit of his late father, is a dinner jacket. Curtis travels frequently with his father's ghost, a vision of unshakeable good cheer and bonhomie who is always popping out of closets or dark corners to lecture his errant son on the correct way of dressing, speaking, and drinking cocktails. He's an ectoplasmic Emily Post, full of anecdotes and historical data to back up his advice. (For example, that dinner jacket comment leads to a delightful reminiscence of life in the society enclave of Tuxedo Park.) The occasion is the impending wedding of Teddy, Curtis' son, and Curtis is prepped to speak at the rehearsal dinner. His father, once the toastmaster general to Buffalo's high society, is loaded with advice about pauses, timing, and anecdotes, all of which his son accepts with weary tolerance. But first, Curtis' father must be apprised of a few unsettling facts: Teddy and his bride, Maya, are getting married not in a church, but a gazebo. ("This is what they call a destination wedding, Dad," Curtis assures him.) The minister in charge of the ceremony is a woman. The wedding party is having an afternoon nude romp in the hotel pool. And, learning that the bride is a mixture of black, Vietnamese, and Peruvian ancestry, Curtis' father, undone by these revelations, inquires wistfully, "Could you say that the lordly blood of the Incas flows through her veins?" There's more to come, most of it delivered to Curtis and his wife, Mimi, by their daughter, Elsie, each new shocker driving the couple back to the minibar for desperately needed shots of scotch and gin. Among other things: The bridesmaids are busily redoing the dinner's seating plan, the better to hunt men; a brace of mystery guests is on the way, trailing surprise revelations of divorce and homosexuality; and Curtis' speech is due to be upstaged by a performance artist who travels with his own projection system. Even worse, the nuptial couple hits the rocks when the bride-to-be admits that she sees Curtis as a malign influence -- exactly the way Mimi has always viewed Curtis' father. Gurney has a microscopically precise eye for the way one generation's values give way to the next, and his skill at making uproarious comedy out it is beyond question. He's especially fine at showing how Curtis and Mimi are exquisitely balanced between their affection for the certainties of the past and the improvisational social manners of today. But, as the vexed members of this more or less functional clan manage to accommodate each other's needs and eccentricities, the author also makes something deeply touching out of their frayed bonds of affection -- especially in the climactic father-son talk about love and marriage between Curtis and Teddy. Once again, a Gurney play benefits from a Mark Lamos production; the director's seamless style is a perfect fit for the author's airy, high-comedy technique. The cast is just about ideal, starting with Gregg Edelman's hearty Curtis, his grip on his emotions loosening with each new bombshell delivered from the party room downstairs. Daniel Davis brings a touch of William F. Buckley to the role of Curtis' father, always smiling and bravely determined to soldier on, despite each new breach of the social code. Carolyn McCormick is gifted with fine comic timing as Mimi, who wearily puts up with her husband's stuffiness and her children's nuttier notions. Elvy Yost provides plenty of mordant fun as Elsie, who is getting fed up with the role of family peacemaker. And Ari Brand pulls off a small coup as Teddy, who, in the plays's exquisitely staged m turning point, unexpectedly reveals his deepest feelings about his fiancée. In addition to Arnone's witty setting, which also allows Curtis' father to make a grand entrance via two-way mirror, there are totally solid contributions from Stephen Strawbridge (lighting), Jess Goldstein (costumes), and John Gromada (sound). "What we're striving for here is a sense of continuity, isn't it Curtis?" notes his father, and indeed Gurney is wise enough to understand what matters -- and what doesn't -- as families remake themselves across the years. Then again, he has, over three decades, shown a remarkable skill for spinning a single theme into a nearly infinite number of original -- and highly theatrical -- dramatic formats. Here again, he has found a fresh and inventive way of painting his vision of America's ruling class, its WASP elite, heading off into the sunset -- more than a little muddled, a bit tipsy to be sure, but loaded with good will, the one quality money can't buy. Alone among his peers, he has reworked the drawing room comedy format of the pre- and postwar years of the 20th century into a most useful tool for detecting the small behavioral changes that signal the huge shifts in the we way live now. Often dismissed as a boulevardier, Gurney remains one our most acute, and necessary, playwrights. --David Barbour 
|
|
