ScheckOnTheater

A romantic triangle of sorts is explored in Edna O’Brien’s elusive and allusive new play, now making its U.S. premiere in a production imported from Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. Featuring sterling performances by Niall Buggy, Beth Cooke and two-time Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn (Secrets and Lies, Little Voice), Haunted  sacrifices clarity in favor of poeticism to detrimental effect.

A memory play whose events are apparently taking place in the mind of elderly widower Mr. Berry (Buggy), it depicts the relationship that develops between him and an innocent younger woman, Hazel (Cooke), who he hires for elocution lessons. In return for her services, he provides her with items of vintage clothing and jewelry that had belonged to his late wife.

Except that Mrs. Berry (Blethyn), who works as a supervisor in a doll factory—a profession all too obviously designed to make poignant the couple’s childlessness—is not quite dead. So she’s quite perplexed as her possessions gradually disappear, eventually confronting her hopelessly dithering, wandering husband.

The couple’s previously happy but now stagnant relationship is well delineated in such lines as when Mr. Berry describes his wife, at least in her younger days, as being “sturdy with remarkable thorns.”

The overly talky, mostly lifeless proceedings, filled with endless literary references ranging from Long Day’s Journey Into Night  to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf  to Shakespeare, are made palatable only by the performances. Cooke is charming and beguiling as the younger woman; Buggy perfectly personifies a middle-aged house-husband whose long dormant intellectual and romantic passions have been rekindled only to once again be snuffed out; and Blethyn brings her trademark earthiness and honesty to her role as the long-suffering wife.

Although she’s written several plays, including Virginia, based on the life of Virginia Woolf, the Irish-born O’Brien is better known as a novelist. It’s hard not to think that this dense piece would have worked far better as prose.

59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St. 212-279-4200. www.59e59.org.   

Does the world really need another 18th century British farce?

That question is fairly begged by the arrival of Nick Jones’ pastiche of a Restoration comedy that has opened courtesy of the Lincoln Center’s developmental initiative, LCT3. Aping its inspirations without adding anything contextually or thematically new to the mix, “The Coward” ultimately comes across as little more than an exercise in stylistic artifice.

Set in late 18th century England, the play concerns the misadventures of Lucidus Culling (Jeremy Strong), a foppish young man who lives up to his titular description. When he accidentally injures an old man and is challenged to a duel by the offended son, Lucidus is pressed to defend his family honor by his overbearing father (Richard Poe).

Too afraid to go through with it, he hires a macho criminal (the entertaining Christopher Evan Welch) to assume his identity. Predictable comic complications ensue, including the misplaced affections of a high-minded local beauty (Kristin Schall, of “The Daily Show” and “Flight of the Conchords”) and a body count that reaches bloodily alarming proportions.

Director Sam Gold has provided a wonderfully handsome production featuring an elegant drawing room set by David Zinn and superb costumes by Gabriel Berry. And there are some delicious comic moments to be sure, many of them provided by Jarlath Conroy’s priceless turns in several roles, including an ill-fated servant. But much like the grating falsetto voice that lead actor Strong has adopted for his role, “The Coward” quickly wears out its welcome.

Duke on 42^nd Street, 229 W. 42^nd St. 646-223-3010. www.Dukeon42.org.    

There’s so much energy, intellectual ambition and gorgeous stagecraft on display in A Free Man of Color that it’s disheartening to report that it barely works at all. John Guare’s comic, historical epic dealing largely with the Louisiana Purchase is so willfully abstruse, so eager to show off, that audience reaction seems to have been merely an afterthought.

Set between 1801-1806 in locations including New Orleans, France, Spain and others, the work is presented in the grand style of Restoration comedy, complete with the occasional rhyming couplets.

The titular character is Jacques Cornet (Jeffrey Wright, making a too long delayed return to the New York stage), a roué who glories in cutting his romantic swath among the eager women of New Orleans. The mulatto son of a wealthy white man and a black slave, he himself owns several slaves, including Murmur (Mos, apparently no longer Def, here reuniting with Wright for the first time since Topdog/Underdog).

But the foppish, florid Cornet is but one of some forty characters in this sprawling tale, which also features such real-life historical figures as Thomas Jefferson (John McMartin), explorer Meriwether Lewis (Paul Dano), James Monroe (Arnie Burton), Robert Livingston (Veanne Cox) and Napoleon (Triney Sandoval).

The piece varies wildly in tone, with the heavily stylized first act particularly alienating. The playwright frequently indulges in broad strokes of fantastical humor, such as his depiction of a grotesque phallus-wearing Napoleon who delivers a lengthy rant about everything British, including such modern icons as Julie Andrews and James Bond.

Although clearly attempting to examine such serious thematic issues as race relations and class differences in early 19th century America, Guare squanders the inherent potential of his fascinating subject matter and milieu with his kitchen sink approach to the material.

The labored work settles down somewhat in its second half, when it adopts a far more somber and direct tone. But by that time, the ceaseless and confusing procession of characters and subplots has drained most of our energy and attention.

Director George C. Wolfe, no stranger to sprawling epics (Angels in America), is unable to bring any real cohesion to the proceedings. He does, however, invest them with an undeniably striking theatricality, aided mightily by David Rockwell’s extravagant, versatile sets and Ann Hould-Ward’s gorgeous period costumes.

Wright is certainly arresting as Cornet, although his posturing eventually becomes slightly wearisome. Faring best are the performers who are allowed to stay relatively grounded in their characterizations, such as Mos’ resentful slave, McMartin’s conflicted Jefferson and Dano’s resolute Lewis.

Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W. 65^th St. 212-239-6200. www.lct.org.

Al Pacino famously spends years obsessing on the Shakespearean roles he takes on, but the results definitely pay off. Such is the case with his Shylock in the production of the Bard’s still controversial The Merchant of Venice that has transferred to Broadway—with some cast changes---after a brief run summer run in Central Park. While his performance in the 2004 film often came across as mannered, his stage rendition is undeniably mesmerizing. His starring turn anchors director Daniel Sullivan’s thoughtful revival which is attracting sell-out crowds.

Set in the Edwardian era, the production doesn’t sacrifice the comedic aspects of the play--the scenes involving Portia’s (Lily Rabe) ill-fated suitors are consistently hilarious--but its atmosphere is mainly harrowing. Antonio, the Christian nobleman, is powerfully portrayed by Byron Jennings as a condescending aristocrat whose barely disguised contempt fuels Shylock’s lust for revenge. Later, when he is about to be forced to give up his pound of flesh, he is chillingly strapped into an antique medical examination chair.

The director’s biggest innovation is the addition of a powerful silent scene in which we see Shylock submitting to a forced baptism. It not only vividly conveys the character’s humiliation, but also his inner strength as he afterwards immediately resumes wearing the yarmulke that has been stripped from his head.

Often speaking in a soft, sing-song voice, Pacino at first playfully emphasizes the character’s wily intelligence and humor, as well as his pained awareness of the marginal role in society to which he has been consigned. But after Shylock’s daughter Jessica (Heather Lind) runs off with her Christian boyfriend Lorenzo (Seth Numrich), he accentuates the bitterness that feeds the character’s steely resolve.

Lily Rabe brings both beauty and intelligence to her superb performance as Portia, and is uncommonly convincing in the pivotal scene in which her character assumes the identity of the male judge deciding Antonio’s fate.         

The supporting roles are also finely handled, with especially solid turns by David Harbour as Bassanio, Marsha Stephanie Blake as the gentlewoman Nerissa and Jesse L. Martin as Gratiano. Christopher Fitzgerald expertly mines the expected laughs as Shylock’s servant, Launcelot Gobbo.

The production elements are first-rate, with Mark Wendland’s striking set design largely consisting of an abstract series of metallic circles that cannily echoes the wedding bands that figure so prominently in the plotline.

Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44^th St. 212-293-6200. www.telecharge.com. Through Jan. 9.

It makes sense that, like the Disney and Dreamworks studios, Warner Bros. would want to mine its cinematic properties for Broadway musical treatment. Less understandable is why, for their attempt at a Christmas perennial with an adaptation of the hit Will Ferrell comedy Elf, they would turn to the same composers responsible for their previous venture, the ill-fated The Wedding Singer.

Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin’s score for Elf--which has arrived on Broadway for a limited holiday engagement ala How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas--is similarly unimpressive, and the show, despite boasting plenty of talent both on and off stage, is a theatrical lump of coal.

Hewing closely to the 2003 film, it tells the story of Buddy (Sebastian Arcelus), a suspiciously tall elf who works for Santa (George Wendt) at the North Pole. When Buddy finds out that he is actually human, he sets off for New York City in search of his identity.

There, he finds his real father, children’s book publishing exec Walter Hobbs (Mark Jacoby), who now has a second wife (Beth Leavel) and young son (Matthew Gumley). While attempting to ingratiate himself to his curmudgeonly dad, the childlike Buddy strikes up a burgeoning romance with cynical Macy’s employee Jovie (Amy Spanger) and attempts to restore Christmas spirit to everyone concerned.

 “I’m an orphan, just like Annie,” announces Buddy at one point, but this show is no Annie, despite the fact that it shares the same writer, Thomas Meehan, here collaborating with Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone). Their charmless book is filled with plenty of cheap gags addressed to the adults (“Don’t go all Charlie Sheen on me” is a typical example) and topical updates (Santa uses an iPad to keep track of things) when it’s not being hopelessly corny. Clearly aimed at the annual tourist holiday influx, it features scenes set at such iconic NYC locations as the Rockefeller Center skating rink, the Empire State Building, Macy’s, Chinatown and even the now closed Tavern on the Green.

Director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw (The Drowsy Chaperone, Monty Python’s Spamalot) keeps things moving at a sprightly enough pace, with the occasional number, such as the elaborate “Sparklejollywinklejingley,” displaying real inventiveness.

But his efforts are defeated by the generic score featuring numerous songs struggling mightily to become Christmas standards but not hitting the mark. 

Arcelus, faced with the undeniably difficult task of filling Ferrell’s shoes, is largely unappealing in the lead role, seeming so young and boyish that all of the comedic potential of his man/child character is essentially squandered. The talented supporting performers are given too little to do to distinguish themselves, while Wendt’s endearing Santa is seen only in brief prologue/epilogue appearances in which he’s even forced to deliver the obligatory cell phone/candy wrapper warning.  

Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45^th St. 212-239-6200. www.Telecharge.com. Through Jan. 2.