[caption id="attachment_67803" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Joel Rooks as George Burns in "Say Goodnight Gracie.""]
"Lobby Hero" By Kenneth Lonergan • Gloria Maddox Theatre, T. Schreiber Studio, W. 26th St., NYC • (Through Nov. 30, 2011)
Kenneth Lonergan is among the most talented of the current crop of young Irish-American playwrights, but when his name appears in print, it's most often in connection with a movie, not a play.
The film in question is the beloved "You Can Count On Me," in which Laura Linney appeared as a young woman trying to solve the mystery of her younger brother's return after a long and unexplained absence. The role of the brother marked one of Mark Ruffalo's first appearances on screen.
Lonergan's plays are seldom revived and by now are largely forgotten. Now, one of Lonergan's earlier plays, "Lobby Hero," which was dismissed when it had its initial off-Broadway production a decade ago, is back in a first rate new production at the Gloria Maddox Theatre. The tightly-written play, involving four characters and set in the lobby of a large residential complex in Manhattan, is simplicity itself, which may be the reason it was so unfairly ignored.
Jeff, a boyish man in his late twenties, is seated at a desk reading a paperback copy of Richard Bachman's thriller, "The Regulators." He has a temporary job working as a security guard.
Soon, his reading is interrupted by the arrival of his self-important boss, William, who likes to be called "Captain" and who clearly enjoys exerting his petty authority. William is making his rounds in the hope of finding a reason to fire one of his assistants, his primary target being Jeff.
Jeff's next visitors are a pair of police officers, Dawn and Bill. Arriving at the building, Bill takes advantage of his desire to "visit" a female resident of the building while the naive Dawn cools her heels in the lobby, making small talk with Jeff, who finds her interesting.
Nothing much happens, except that the crafty cop, Bill, having left his hat in his girlfriend's apartment, is exposed as an amatory opportunist. Dawn and Jeff, meanwhile, share the beginning of a potential friendship.
Lonergan never tells his audience what Jeff's life is like, apart from his temporary job as one of "Captain" William's flunkies. It would be easy enough to imagine him as an out-of-work actor, particularly as played by the charmingly inventive Michael Black.
Josh Sienkiewicz invests Bill with precisely the right measure of inherent cruelty, exactly the amount needed to put Dawn in fear of losing her job.
William, the self-styled "captain," is the thinnest role of Lonergan's quartet, but Nasay Ano makes him credible if not terribly interesting beyond the few details the playwright has provided.
Peter Jensen, the co-artistic director at the T. Schreiber Studio, has done well with his actors, and particularly with Lonergan's neglected script, as solid as it is inspired.
A virtual feast for actors, "Lobby Hero" deserves to be vastly better known.
"Say Goodnight Gracie" With Joel Rooks • St. Luke's Theatre, W. 46th St., NYC • Open-Ended Run
A few decades ago, when there was still a healthy and active professional theater on the road, visiting cities actross the country, there was such a thing as a "split week." A show might play four performances in, say, St. Louis, and then finish the week in Kansas City.
St. Luke's Theatre has come up with its own version of a split week. "Say Goodnight Gracie," a one-actor show bearing the subtitle "The Life, Laughter & Love of George Burns and Gracie Allen," has opened there with Joel Rooks as Burns. It plays just three shows each week, with matinees at 2:00 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, with other attractions occupying the stage at other times.
The character of Burns is alone on stage, backed by huge photographic images of his late wife, Gracie Allen, while the recorded voice of actress Didi Conn speaks the lines that Gracie, seen on film and television clips, doesn't speak for herself. .
Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was an Irish-American girl from San Francisco who, already a vaudeville veteran at age three, was one of four daughters of a song-and-dance man who had deserted his family when Gracie was only five. George Burns had been born Nathan Birnbaum on Rivington Street on New York's Lower East Side in 1896.
In 1922, when she was 20, Gracie Allen met George Burns, who had been floundering around in vaudevillian waters for years. The pair formed the duo which became famous as Burns and Allen. Four years later, they married and eventually adopted two children. Their decision to adopt was influenced by the heart condition which motivated Allen's retirement in 1958 and caused her death in 1964.
The title, "Say Goodnight Gracie," recalls the phrase with which the pair signed off first on radio and then on television throughout their amazing 36-year performing career.
The "Gracie" script is the work of Emmy Award winning writer Rupert Holmes and the new production has been directed by William I. Franzblau and designed by Elaine Smith.
If Joel Rooks, who more or less inherited the part of George Burns from Frank Gorshin, lacks the ease and grace which characterized his predecessor's work, he'll probably achieve it with further playing.
Much of the wamth in the show stems from Gracie Allen's actual voice, which is heard in the film and television clips which are part of the production. In the brief remountings of the pair's radio shows, Gracie's part is played skillfully and generously by actress Conn.
When George Burns was asked what he thought had been the secret of the team's success, first in radio and later in television, he replied "We talked to each other."
That just about says it all.
