Theatre in Review: Sh*T. Meet. Fan. (MCC Theater)

	Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Krakowski. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

In his latest effort, Robert O'Hara is out to shock -- the title might offer a hint about that - but, despite a predictable premise, it takes some time to figure out what kind of play this is. Clint Ramos' swanky set design -- marble walls, trendy paintings, multiple levels, and a roof terrace, all posed against the New York skyline - is a throwback to the old boulevard comedy days when curtains rose to polite applause for the chic furnishings. The first scene continues the retro feeling, as Eve, the fashionable lady of the house, frantically confronts her adolescent daughter Sam, who has in her possession a "value pack" of condoms. "You actually brought condoms into my home," Eve shouts, as if Sam were running guns or meth or something. "You were fucking way before 17 and now all of a sudden you're Mother Tyrone?" grumbles Sam. "I think the sainted nun you're referring to is Teresa," Eve replies.

Sigh: The vocabulary has been updated but dialogue like that suggests O'Hara has been re-reading old copies of vintage sex comedies like The Impossible Years or Take Her, She's Mine, in which parents worry incessantly about their daughters' virginity. Given that it is the present day, Sam is college-age, and Eve is a therapist, it's unclear what all this hysteria is about. (That Eve is played by Jane Krakowski, looking less like a mental health professional than next month's cover of Vogue, is the least of the show's problems.)

The jokey atmosphere is maintained when Neil Patrick Harris appears as Rodger, Eve's husband, a seemingly unflappable plastic surgeon. "Your daughter's pregnant," Eve snaps. "So, I hope you're happy about that." (In fact, Sam isn't pregnant at all -- remember the condoms? -- but Eve doesn't bother with such fine distinctions.) "Oh, great," Rodger replies. "We have that extra room in the back, perfect for the doula." That one gets the mildest of chuckles; at moments like these, Harris and Krakowski, longtime sitcom veterans, look wistful for the laugh lines of their TV days.

The pervasive air of unreality continues as we arrive at the evening's real business. Eve and Rodger have invited friends over for cocktails and a look at a lunar eclipse. The guest list consists of three couples, two and a half of whom show up: Tramell Tillman, as Logan, the only Black person in the crowd, doesn't bring the new girlfriend everyone is so curious about, a development that bears watching. Despite some rather noticeable age differences, we're expected to believe all four men -- the others include Garret Dillahunt and Michael Oberholtzer -- were fraternity brothers, causing them to bond for life, never mind that they seemingly have nothing in common but an annual skiing trip to Zermatt. There's a lot of talk about divorces and broken relationships in their circle. Then Eve proposes a game: Everyone is to put their phones on the coffee table. "Whatever texts, emails, calls from whatever apps, whatever arrives we share it. For the next hour. We share it. We don't have any secrets for the next hour."

That Eve, with her training, would propose such a destructive amusement beggars belief. That her guests would go along with it makes no sense whatsoever, especially since they are collectively hiding trunkfuls of secrets. For example, one character -- I won't say who, since they figure in some awkwardly handled exposition involving switched phones -- nightly receives a photo of their friend's vagina. Then again, another twist involves a text from a nursing home announcing a room has become available for someone's mother; do such notices routinely arrive at 10pm on a Friday? Wouldn't this news be delivered by phone during business hours? (The play is based on the Italian film Perfect Strangers, released in 2016, which, I hope, handles this premise more convincingly.)

Of course, the game is a disaster, and what begins as a comedy of embarrassment soon sours into open marital warfare as we learn of adulteries, prejudices, and bitter disputes among these so-called friends. As the acrimony mounts, the play is stranded between half-hearted one-liners and serious indictments, rather like a Neil Simon rewrite of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Time and again, O'Hara settles, lazily, for the least likely setups. We are told that Frank (Oberholtzer), the biggest lout in the bunch -- and that's saying something -- was plagued by a mother so possessive that, during his college days, she tried to move into his frat house, via a bedroom window, only to discover him having a four-way with a set of triplets. Well, that's a situation we can all identify with. We are also told that Frank is thinking about switching careers, becoming, of all things, a nurse; this is the funniest thing in the show, however unintentionally.

If O'Hara had deployed his savagely pointed wit, it would have been much easier to accept these cartoon stick figures as objects of satire. (He pulled off such a trick in the convulsively funny 2015 satire Barbecue.) But the humor is largely mechanical, based on mortifying revelations, the dialogue marked by volleys of vulgar insults. When it looks as if one character -- I won't say who -- is a closeted gay, the word "faggot" gets rolled out with such abandon that you'd think it was 1969, before the Stonewall riots; I don't think it appears so often in The Boys in the Band.

All this bad behavior leads to Logan's lengthy denunciation, in racial terms, of his toxic friends. "I have wasted almost my entire life on white people," he says. (Well, with friends like these, you won't get an argument from me.) Not that the script has anything to say about why he has tolerated them for decades, especially with the secret he has been carrying around. The problem is O'Hara beats him to the punch, so exhaustively establishing the characters' awfulness that by the time Logan tears into them it feels redundant.

O'Hara, who also directed, has attracted a notably starry cast, including Debra Messing as a dipsomaniac housewife with mother-in-law trouble and Constance Wu as Oberholzer's oddly compliant new wife, fielding calls from her sex-addicted ex. (Hannah, Wu's character, also gets a pass from the playwright, being a woman of color.) The author is a fine director, and his staging features several clever touches: Everyone lining up at the apartment's entrance to get a look at an intriguing new arrival; Messing and Krakowski inching across the sofa to get the latest scoop; and Messing announcing, dismissively, "I've had one drink; what are you talking about?" while emptying a bottle of vodka into a glass. The dialogue also has its moments: I particularly liked the characterization of men as being like PCs ("Cheap. Picks up viruses. And can only do one thing at a time.") with women as Macs. ("Intuitive. Fast. Elegant," Hannah says. "Also expensive and compatible only with themselves," Frank adds.)

The director has made sure that the play has all the right trappings. Ramos' set is perfectly sleek and soulless, as befits its inhabitants, although the placement of the roof terrace is awkward for some of the scenes played there. Sarafina Bush's costumes reflect the understated casual look available only to the rich. (It's a little strange for Eve, sporting the tiniest miniskirt, to complain Sam is dressed like a hooker, but whatever.) Alex Jainchill's lighting and Palmer Hefferan's sound are solid contributions.

O'Hara's play tries on several identities before arriving at its furious destination but his contempt for his characters is too naked from the get-go. Not funny enough for straight-up comedy, populated with characters too thin for drama, and lacking a wicked sense of caricature, it struggles to find a consistent, coherent voice. Thanks to its starry cast, it is apparently drawing substantial crowds; without them, I wonder how many takers it would find. --David Barbour