The City of Conversation Previews

And the hostess with the mostess on the ball is...

The fulcrum of the New York theater scene is Jan Maxwell and her oft robbed bag of Tony Awards. A season can judged by her presence in it, and after tonight it's officially a good one.

There's been some discussion here lately about how Lotte Lenya won a Tony for an off-Broadway performance and it's time to bring the tradition back!! If you can't tell, I LOVED Jan tonight. The play spans several decades and she ages, Lee Daniels' The Butler-style, throughout. The play is structured in three acts, and the second act is full of such fireworks I thought the Mitzi Newhouse was gonna blow from all the gasping, cheering and clapping.

The play itself was very interesting and reminded me of Other Desert Cities, except this time the adults are democrats and the children are republicans. It's historical, but not dry; smart, but accessible.

The supporting cast was strong, but Beth Dixon was the standout as Jan Maxwell's older sister.

I liked Catherine Zuber's costumes, and if she did the wigs as well then she deserves even more praise.

I highly recommend this.

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I want to say I was on the street by 10:15. The first act is only 45 minutes, and then there's the only intermission. The third act is fairly brief.

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Thanks for the encouragement, Whizzer! I'd bought my member ticket some weeks back and after getting a refund on my Act One ticket, was hoping this one would be good

Agreed, Whizzer. Thanks for your glowing review. I was thrilled by this show last night, and it's in especially good shape for a first preview. The material is, like you said, fiercely clever but still accessible, and it fits in Maxwell's voice like it was born there. I can't wait to see this show multiple times.

Went tonight. Pretty much sold-out with a few scattered seats.

I LOVED it. Now let me preface this by the fact that I'm in my 20s and I don't follow politics maybe like I should. So the first 10/20mins I was a little confused and bored, but then the human relationships take over and the political talk starts to shape and make more sense, and I was drawn in.

The audience around me understood all the 60s political leaders, etc being thrown about and were eating it up.

I cried like a baby in Act 3. Just powerful, powerful stuff.

Maxwell is a marvel. I thought the whole cast was great. Props go to Maxwell's sister in the show for taking such a small character and making her into someone you just want to have in your family.

The only two small quibbles are the young wife. In Act 1 I found her performance so flat and boring. She eventually changes it up, but I just hated most of her choices in Act 1. And the other lady, the red head. Her character basically is there for no reason, and what she did with that character was just really terrible acting.

The design is elegant, and the lighting/direction choices are great.

I think the reason more of us didn't stand up is because - like me - we were too busy wiping tears away and collecting ourselves.

When I first sat down I thought "Oh great. Another play about rich white people divulging "secrets" for 2 hrs. But I loved the different twists and how the mother is liberal with a Republican son.

I saw it tonight, and this is one of the better plays of the season in my opinion, and I have seen most of the new Broadway ones and some off-Broadway ones as well. Jan Maxwell is wonderful in this.

I generally prefer musicals to plays but this is one of the best theatrical experiences I have ever had. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I was so fully engrossed throughout the entire show that I was shocked intermission came so quickly. With such a small theater, there is not a bad seat in the house. Go see this before it closes!

Although most of the play went over my head (not a history buff of the political vein), i was floored by some of the best acting i have seen all season. THat is being from not just Ms. Maxwell but also Michael Simmons and (forgive me) the woman who played the daughter. if you can snag a ticket to this, definitely go!

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I liked the show quite a bit, but it wasn't without flaws. The daughter in law is a staunch republican, which means the odds are stacked against her from the get-go, in terms of having the audience sympathize with her. We don't need her to be a raging, sociopathic lunatic as well. It just seemed to be overkill. It would've been more interesting if the Republican were the sympathetic character in my opinion. Also, the daughter in law is really dynamic and interesting in the first scene but by time the second scene rolls around, she's just a bitch with virtually no redeeming qualities and her arguments with Hester verge on irritating instead of thrilling. It would've also been nice to see some bipartisanship in terms of Hester's politics and beliefs. She always seems to be the one we side with, which is fine, but the other side of the arguments could have been fleshed out more. She never seems to have much competition when it came to the poltics of the piece.

That said, this was a very entertaining show with some strong performances, particularly Maxwell's. Truly this may be my favorite performance of hers, which is saying quite a lot. She's just stunning. It's certainly stronger than a lot of the new plays that premiered on Broadway this year and definitely worth checking out if you can. Even if the play isn't 100% successful or dynamic in the way it could have been, Maxwell certainly is. And overall, she compensates for so many of the plays shortcomings. She's giving a great performance.

Also, whatever they manage to do to Maxwell between the second and third scene (no spoilers here) is nothing short of astonishing. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Updated On: 5/21/14 at 08:58 AM

Finally saw it yesterday. This piece is unabashedly old fashioned in structure, style and tone, even as it shrewdly mines the divisive post-millennial political climate. It is part David Hare (especially "Secret Rapture"), part Jon Robin Baitz ("Other Desert Cities") and part Lillian Hellman melodrama. And for my money, especially in this truly exquisite production, entirely successful. The biases noted in some quibbles strike me as necessary for the play to makes its point. This is not a "fair and balanced" tract, but a savvy portrait of a particular type of political reality based modus operandi in Washington, a fading one, noted by the script. The aim here is not to present equal sides in a debate but to dramatize the price paid -- the truly personal sacrifice -- in sustaining an ideological stance. It's a fictional work set against a backdrop of tumultuous decades in this country, and makes smart points about the cost to everyone. To me it makes good sense to keep the point of view focused on the central character's impassioned and unyielding one. And what a glorious character! Jan Maxwell is scary good in this role. She's reason to see the production, but the play itself is equally fine.

This afternoon there were many tears -- after an act of people (geriatric, duly noted) talking back to the stage. "Oh no!" "She can't!" "Oh my God!" were heard, and in the Mitzi Newhouse. The play is stirring up a generation of theatergoer for whom "stirring up" seems less than likely.

Unmissable. I liked it far better than the long-winded, far more docudrama-esque play that won the Tony.

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Updated On: 6/29/14 at 08:08 AM