Reviving dramas with key plot elements that make little sense in the 21 st century is tricky business indeed, but can work with the right cast and director. John Benjamin Hickey does a fine job as high-strung Flan, and Corey Hawkins has definitely earned his Tony nomination as Paul. Allison Janney brings a fresh spin to her character, effectively conveying the heartbreaking, “bleeding heart” maternal instinct of Ouisa, but with more of an archness and less of the natural elegance and grit Stockard Channing brought to the part in the 1990 production and 1993 film adaptation, co-starring Will Smith as Paul. Six degrees of separation” still has a Shakespearean grandness to it. Ouisa’s famous monologue “I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six Degrees of Separation was a seminal play when it debuted. Is he trying to send up the absurdities of spoiled rich kids? If so, one doubts that was John Guare’s original intent.
Cullman has the Kittredge children shriek and squawk. Cullman has the cast play parts of the story as farce. As other characters in the show expose Paul’s outrageous con, Mr. Guare’s thoughtful and profound story unravels under Trip Cullman’s misguided direction. Unfortunately, once the truth about Paul is revealed, Mr. Guare’s dialogue remains crisp and on target, even if some of the references to blacks seem outmoded in an America that has seen eight years of President Barack Obama come and go, African American activism and the momentum of Black Lives Matter after countless tragedies involving the police. Poitier, now 90, has six daughters but no son). Of course, in 2017 a quick Google search would show the Kittredges that Paul could not be Mr. With many stage shows, suspending disbelief is commonplace for audiences, and one must realize this play is 27 years old in order to make sense of the narrative. John Guare supposedly based Six Degrees on the real-life story of a con man who worked his way into upscale Manhattan homes claiming to be Sidney Poitier’s son.
We see how Paul also cons friends of the Kittredges (Lisa Emery and Michael Countryman) and a young couple from Utah.
Of course, Paul is nothing he claims to be, as the Kittredges soon learn when they catch him in bed with a male hustler the next morning. The Kittredges are so spellbound by Paul’s intellectual wit and grace that they lend him money and allow him to spend the night in their daughter’s bedroom. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (supposedly from a thesis he has written). Paul is a charming young man indeed, cooking for them and regaling the Kittredges with tales of his famous father and a long monologue about Holden Caulfield in J.D. The plot thickens as Paul claims he’s the son of actor Sidney Poitier and is in New York to meet his father, purportedly filming a Hollywood musical adaptation of Broadway’s Cats (there are numerous jokes about that show). The guy, dressed in preppie attire, is bleeding from a stab wound and says he knows Ouisa and Flan’s children at Harvard. The doorman (Tony Carlin) brings in a young African American man, Paul (Corey Hawkins, Tony nominated for the role). They are trying to sell their friend a Paul Cézanne painting when they are suddenly interrupted. She’s a socially conscious rich woman he’s a successful art dealer, and they live in a swank Upper East Side apartment overlooking Central Park.Īs the play opens, Ouisa and Flan are talking (sometimes right to the audience) while simultaneously entertaining Geoffrey (Michael Siberry), a super-rich friend from South Africa (during the apartheid era). It is in this posh milieu that we meet the Kittredges: Ouisa (Allison Janney) and husband Flan (John Benjamin Hickey). However, there was, like today, the wealthy and those who wanted an entrée into their privileged world.
David Dinkins was mayor, Times Square was full of X-rated movie houses, crime was rampant, AIDS was ravaging the gay community and race relations were at an all-time low. In 1990 (when the show was first produced), New York City was far different from today. There is plenty to enjoy in this reboot, including some fine performances, but Trip Cullman’s direction is puzzling and dilutes the tone and theme of the story. Despite some elements that make the show “dated,” playwright John Guare’s drama remains relevant because it has volumes to say about class, race and American society. Six Degrees of Separation, just nominated for a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, is a provocative trip back to early 1990s New York City.