Broadway Playhouse

The Lehman Trilogy – Broadway Playhouse – October 12, 2023

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I know The Lehman Trilogy won the Tony award for best play but I have a lot of problems with it. And I’m not the only one.

The Washington Post suggested that “an American playwright [the playwright was Italian], confronted on a daily basis with the economic, cultural and historical ramifications of slavery,” would not have made the same decision to remain silent on the issue.

We’ve all become somewhat inured to the cavalier insertion of historical inaccuracies for the sake of artistic license, though I, for one, believe such liberties often make the vehicle less, not more engaging. So I won’t go into great detail regarding the ironic changes in the timeline  of events in a play produced by the TimeLine Theatre Company, as admitted in the play book itself, but can’t help but object to the reiteration of the myth that there were numerous suicides on Wall Street on Black Thursday in 1929. It’s just not true.

At least the acting was good, and I didn’t have to sit though the original five hours of the play, only three, which could have been reduced even further but for the author’s or adapter’s insistence on repeatedly using repetition until that poor horse died from a concussion.

The Play That Goes Wrong (Take 2) – Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place – February 8, 2022

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No hitches this time. (My NDA prevents me from revealing what really happened in January.)

Though some of the action in the show loses a little when you know what’s going to happen (having seen an earlier production in December 2018), the fact that the performance is all about the humor, without any unnecessary regard to plot or character development, enables the excellent physical comedy to hold up on its own (kudos to the cast, set designer, and prop maker). Moreover, on one occasion, I, and everyone else in the audience, practically jumped out of their seats in reaction to a gag, even though the underlying premise took a second to process.

The theater was about half full, heavily weighted toward the front, which enabled me to have a row to myself, as it always should be. The theater took masking seriously, with an usher holding a sign that said “keep masks up.” On one occasion, during intermission, I saw the usher approach an audience member to tell that person to lift theirs. And though the play features some audience interaction, I’m quite sure (or am I?) that this particular moment was not in the script.

Bottom line – it was great to be someplace surrounded by laughter (not caused by me having toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe).