By Harry Haun
03 Feb 2006

In a sense, he doesn’t feel himself too far afield from the zany antics of his past. It’s just that he used existing medical conditions like amnesia and premature aging to get to the knockabout nuttiness of his main courses. “I feel like I’m writing a lot about the same stuff that I’ve already written about thematically,” he says. “This, too, is about a woman waking up to an upside-down-world where nothing makes sense and she has to sort her way through the world and make her way and make sense of that. It’s about dysfunction within the family. It’s about how we communicate within a family. That’s the stuff of Fuddy Meers and Kimberly Akimbo. It’s just executed in a totally different way.”

Has he as a playwright reached a fork in the road? “I don’t know what the next play’ll be. I have an idea for a play. As I’m thinking about it, it seems more naturalistic, like this.”

Whatever that turns out to be, John Gallagher Jr. would seem to have a good shot at being on board. He’s the only member of the five-person cast to have had prior Lindsay-Abaire exposure. He was in Kimberly Akimbo at its MTC premiere, did the London edition of Fuddy Meers and now turns 21 and a Broadway actor all in one year as the guilt-ridden high-schooler who struck Nixon’s son. “Y’know, what David said is true about him never having to say much in the rehearsal room. Dan is so precise and exact in his direction. He knows exactly what a scene needs to make one involved in the play.”

Mary Catherine Garrison, who plays Nixon’s scattered and scatter-brained little sister, is amazed the cast made it through unscathed and unscarred. “The whole process has been unbelievably pleasant and strangely easy,” she admits. “I probably shouldn’t say that, but I guess with people like this, it looks like they did all the hard work and I just showed up to work. No one suffered in this whole thing. There was no pain, no agony, no tears. Dan’s one of the most patient, intelligent people I’ve ever met--so insightful and so good at what he does. He was just born to be a director. It seems easy the way he does it.”

The other John in the show, and the other male--John Slattery--plays Nixon’s grieving husband. When he guested on HBO’s “Sex and the City” (as Sarah Jessica Parker’s political plaything), “Cynthia and I shook hands, but we’ve known each other for years. This, however, is the first time we’ve really worked together.” His reason for wanting to do the role--his first on Broadway since Betrayal in 2001--is “just for the challenging of doing this part eight times a week. Sometimes you score. Sometimes you don’t.”

The fact that the cast brings the play off exactly life-sized is a tribute to a sensitive task-master. “We worked for that effect, the whole group,” says director Sullivan. “And, frankly, with such difficult subject matter, I couldn’t have had a better group to work with.

“It’s a play that’s all subtext. It’s all about what people are not actually saying, what they’re trying to keep to themselves. what their expectations of one another are. This is a play that a lot of people read and didn’t respond to. They didn’t see it. They didn’t understand the simplicity of it, they didn’t understand the power of it. So that was unusual to read this play and respond so strongly to it, then find out a lot of people hadn’t. I think part of it has to do with expectations of David. Those who’ve seen his plays in the past see him as a traditional Christopher Durang type and wonder ‘Where’s the absurdity?’”

Casting, as it always is, is key to Sullivan’s success. “I never see anyone when I read a play. I only see the play, so I always really have to turn myself around to see about who could do it. When we were trying to find people who would be right for the lead, we saw a lot of actors who were emotionally wrought from the beginning, but Cynthia is somebody who is so careful to show the arc of the play, she gets closer and closer to her feelings. And that’s when you realize that she’s the person who could do this role.”

William H. Macy, in town on “a cocktail tour” to raise money for a romantic comedy he has written with Stephen Schachter and will film with Lisa Kudrow, thought the play “magnificent--great acting, great writing, beautifully directed. It’s what Broadway’s supposed to be. It wasn’t trying to be a movie. It’s what theatre does best.”

He admitted he got into it the same way the author got into it—as a parent. “I’ve got two little kids, so I found it very moving. What I loved the most about it was that these actors, even in this tragic story, were duking their way out of it. They weren’t indulging in it. They were looking for solutions, and, as a result, I just wept. For parents, it’s the unthinkable.”

The cast gives their opening night curtain call.
photo by Aubrey Reuben

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