The Time Of The Cuckoo

There’s one good reason, and only one of which I am aware, to see the Lincoln Center Production of Arthur Laurents’ 50’s comedy, THE TIME OF THE CUCKOO, and that is the versatile Debra Monk. As sustaining and resilient an actress as the American stage has to offer, she has portrayed characters as diverse as the family matron in Eugene O’Neill’s AH WILDERNESS!, and the cheerleader of pop song & fun in OIL CITY SYMPHONY. And now as Leona, the spinster American tourist in THE TIME OF THE CUCKOO, she dives into every moment with exquisite realism, her emotional colors shifting as quickly as lovers in Venice, which is, incidentally, where the play takes place.

Unfortunately, while the set is refreshingly Venetian, the content is all fluff. Its contrasting portraits of Americans in Europe (à la Henry James) are just too simplistic. Take the elderly couple Lloyd and Edith McIlhenny, for instance. They’ve lost touch with the immediacy of life and the joys of sexual partnering. while the young American artist, Eddie Yaeger, and his empty-headed, but physically well-endowed wife live out their passion, even if not always with each other. What obvious situations these are!

If Laurents is elucidating his philosophy of love or marriage, it’s a pulp version we get here. So much for amore.

That’s This Week on Broadway. I’m Isa Goldberg.