Abigail’s Party
I’m Isa Goldberg
reporting on ABIGAIL’S PARTY off-Broadway.
One wonders how husbands
and wives really choose one another. In Mike Leigh’s comedy
drama ABIGAIL’S PARTY, the differences between Bev, the role
played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and her husband, Laurence, the actor
Max Baker are just too striking. She is much younger, beautiful
and while her vulgarity has a certain appeal, it’s clearly
not working for Laurence, a stressed out real estate salesman,
who’s more out of it than into it.
That’s the central
story that develops throughout these 2 acts, a cocktail party in
which the primary activities are drinking, cigarette smoking and,
in keeping with the period (the setting is a London suburb in the
1970’s) swinging. At least that’s what we anticipate
as Bev fixes her attention on Ange’s husband, Tony, whom
she familiarly calls “Ton”. But Ange, too floored by
her non-responsive husband’s sudden interest in dancing just
doesn’t get it. While Laurence sadly does, his only ally,
the divorcee Sue, played in a convincing spinsterish way by Lisa
Emery, isn’t able to offer much solace since her daughter
the 15-year-old Abigail is the one who’s really having the
party. What goes on there is supposed to be what they are all fretting
about.
But, Mike Leigh’s
sardonic picture of these working class Brits doesn’t really
go anywhere. The story is pretty much the same, from the first
cigarette to the last heart pounding teenage song rocking in the
background. While there’s drama festering underneath the
agitating comedy, the finale when it arrives, is abrupt – delivering
a sense of injustice as much for Bev as for Laurence with whom
we share pathos in wanting to get out of the situation. Still,
we hope it won’t end like this.
Scott Elliott keeps the
play’s satirical tone to the beat of Jose Feliciano’s “Baby
let me light your fire” and an Elvis tune, the kind of material
one often finds in “The Big Chill” type of flicks.
But of course here, Mike Leigh, best known for his Oscar winning “Secrets
and Lies”, tries to dig a little deeper.
Hands down Jennifer Jason
Leigh is the show’s primary entertainment. And for the most
part she’s fabulous. Similarly, Max Baker as Laurence reveals
the layers of his disheartened character while Elizabeth Jasicki’s
Ange and Darren Goldstein’s Tony make their edgy characterizations
convincing.
That’s This Week Off Broadway. I’m Isa Goldberg.
