Theatre in Review: Shows for Days (Lincoln Center Theater/Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre)

	Patti LuPone. Photo: Joan Marcus

To play a force of nature, you get a force of nature: In Shows for Days, Patti LuPone, who has excelled at impersonating divas named Evita, Reno, Norma, and Maria -- not to mention a certain furiously determined stage mother named Rose -- is ideally cast as Irene, artistic director, leading lady, and all-around polarizing center of a small-town Pennsylvania community theatre circa 1973. Dressed in one perfectly color-coordinated ensemble after another, swanning about the stage with the entitlement of minor royalty, this road-company Ranevskaya treats the members of the Prometheus Theatre as her personal serfs. Dismissing the complaints of the theatre's cofounder, she says, airily, "Lesbians are not a merry people, per se." Claiming that she was meant for better things, she bemoans her current state, "stuck among the Amish, trying to put on Ionesco." Fending off the too-romantic advances of a young admirer, she warns him, "I'm old enough to be your mother's younger friend." In her own humble opinion, she gives and she gives and she gives -- including three curtain speeches at each performance.

Does it matter that the company is installed in a crumbling building in the middle of an abandoned downtown district? Or that volunteers are scarce, and bankruptcy looms? Nonsense: The Prometheans are artists, and art will find a way -- even if it involves lies, extortion, or faking a serious illness. LuPone invests Irene with a stunning self-assurance, and, taking deadly aim, knocks each of her wisecracks out of the park. Just as Douglas Carter Beane's last play, The Nance, seemed perfectly tailored to the talents of Nathan Lane, if Shows for Days wasn't written as a vehicle for LuPone, you certainly wouldn't know it.

If LuPone is the marquee attraction at Shows for Days, she certainly isn't its only asset. Her costar, Michael Urie, provides fresh transfusions of charm with each appearance as Car, a Broadway playwright, looking back at the ragtag bunch who gave him his first, and hopelessly addictive, experience of the wicked stage. He convincingly conjures up the 14-year-old who Car, who, bedazzled by Irene and company, suddenly finds himself anointed the company's in-house author. Equally fine is Dale Soules as Irene's partner in theatrical crime, a salty lady of a certain age who knows a disaster on the horizon when she sees it. Soules earns honest laughter whether noting, in horror, that Irene has the look of someone artistic about to make a real-world decision, or, counseling Car in a moment of over-emotive heartbreak, noting, "This is what happens when minors are exposed to Noël Coward." There are also zesty contributions by Zoë Winters as the theatre's highly enthusiastic ingénue, who sees a visit to the emergency room as a fine chance to show off her grandmother's mink stole; Lance Coadie Williams as a gay black actor who figures prominently in one of Irene's most nefarious schemes; and Jordan Dean as Damien, Irene's college-age lover, who decides to enjoy a little quality time with Car as well.

Damien's fling with the underage Car, while sleeping with the older, married Irene, unleashes a scandal that threatens the theatre's very existence. By this point, however, it has become clear that Shows for Days is a really series of laugh lines in search of a play; oddly, in what surely is his most personal work, Beane has chosen to skim the surface. He wants us to see The Prometheans, for all their bizarre foibles and general lack of talent, as heroes, bravely transcending their dull provincial lives in pursuit of their art, but he never digs deeply enough to make us care about them. Indeed, Shows for Days is often irresolute, depending on the needs of the plot: The Prometheans are presented as rank amateurs, until they have a hit that draws raves from the Philadelphia papers. A major plot twist turns on a discovery about Williams' boyfriend, information that Irene, who is both politically connected and a confirmed village gossip, should have long known about. Would the city really set out to demolish the theatre without making sure the company had evacuated? And would The Prometheans, no matter how desperate, really put on a play by a kid not even old enough to drive, whose only experience has been penning program bios for the cast?

Beane makes some good points about the shady municipal politics that are destroying the city's downtown; he also draws a clear line of distinction between the adult Car, who has a husband and children, and the gay Prometheans who live furtive, closeted lives that leave them prey to blackmail. Still, when the company infighting turns ugly, Shows for Days remains curiously unmoving. We are given to understand that Irene is a fantasist stuck in a dead marriage, but we never feel the desperation that drives her; she remains merely a monster, if an amusing and colorful one. For this reason, a near-the-end revelation about her true identity falls surprisingly flat. Similarly, it's hard to feel much for Car, even when he becomes the pawn of manipulative adults; this innocent, vulnerable boy is caught in a chain of events that, arguably, could leave him scarred for life; here they are presented with little more than a that's-showbiz shrug. In the climax, Beane takes the Prometheans to the edge of disaster -- and then leaves the plot dangling, settling for a fast-forward that proves not very satisfying. Irene, criticizing Car's youthful playwriting style as a relentless series of gags, says, "Where is the heartbreak underneath?" It's unusual to have a leading character cogently identify the weakness of her vehicle, but there you are.

Jerry Zaks' direction has many high points, when the assembled Prometheans, celebrating in a bar, stop cold to stare at the members of a rival theatre, or when Irene, at stage center, fields several disasters at once. He neatly handles a riotous sequence in which LuPone and Soules, trying to scare up wealthy board members, put on their best company manners, making a rocky presentation to the local gentry. Still, he could have discouraged a slight tendency among some of the cast members to overact; from time to time, the stage at the Newhouse looks like the set of a network sitcom. The show looks great, however, thanks to John Lee Beatty's rehearsal room set and Natasha Katz's simple, elegant lighting; there's an especially telling moment when Car, caught on stage during a technical rehearsal, is seen bathed in various hues of light; you know that he will never be the same again. William Ivey Long's costumes perfectly evoke the fashions of 1973, and he has no end of fun with Irene's wildly overelaborate wardrobe, especially a caped, gold lamé gown that makes her look like an Oscar statuette come to life. Leon Rothenberg's sound design capably delivers a handful of effects, most notably the upsetting sound of a wrecking ball.

If Shows for Days reveals Beane punching below his weight, it's good for laughs, and the cast is very good company. In a funny way, it resembles the summer-stock star packages of his youth -- breezy, not-ready-for-Broadway comedies tailored to a star's talents. And there is LuPone, enjoying a summer holiday as the irrepressible Irene. Cheerfully informing young Car, who has never stepped onto a stage, that he will that very night make his debut as an English butler, she dismisses his objections, saying, "Many are called, but few are called back." Words to live by, Irene. -- David Barbour