Steve
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Cititour.com Review
The musical theater in-jokes fly in (and over some heads) so fast and frequently in Mark Gerrard’s “Steve,” now being presented by the New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Theatre Cover, they almost obscure the thoughtful play underneath about a group of middle-aged gay friends facing infidelity, sexless marriages, parenting, loss of looks, and, yes, death. The result often feels like eating a perfectly good croissant whose taste is obscured by covering it with too much strawberry jam, although Cynthia Nixon’s savvy direction and a first-rate cast ensure that you leave feeling like the calories were worth it.
After a 20-minute pre-show set of show tunes by the musically gifted cast, the real action begins. On the 47th birthday of Steven (Matt McGrath, who is equally adept with a quip and a tear), this “failed chorus boy” turned stay-at-home dad accidentally discovers that his longtime partner Stephen, a prosperous lawyer (played with low-key likeability by Malcom Gets), has been “sexting” with Brian (an underused Jerry Dixon), the longtime partner of Steven’s best-friend Matt (Mario Cantone, at the top of his considerable game.)
Whether or not, as Stephen insists, his correspondence with Brian was nothing but fantasy, it shatters Steven’s existence – one that is already on shaky ground, in no small part, because his best friend Carrie, a no-nonsense lesbian (superbly drawn by Ashlie Atkinson), is dying of cancer. He begins to question everything, from his place in the world to his own longstanding devotion to fidelity – sorely tempted by a young, friendly waiter named Esteban (a well-cast Francisco Pryor Grant). And answers are not easy to come by.
If a lot of this sounds like a Terrence McNally play, well, it’s true. Gerrard seems to have watched “Love! Valour! Compassion!” too many times. (Sorry, but I really wish the final scene, as well-written as it is, did not take place on Fire Island). And even the number of opera references in McNally’s “The Lisbon Traviata” or “Master Class” pale in comparison to the Sondheim-mania stage. (It also helps to have seen “Rent,” “Mame,” and “The Sound of Music,” to name a few tuners referenced here.)
Still, the work is quite funny and Gerrard does hone in on the truth facing gay men and women (or perhaps all men and women) of a certain age. And at its best, notably a monologue of sorts -- brilliantly performed by Gets -- in which Stephen is multi-calling, multi-texting, and multi-worrying, Gerrard’s writing can be quite stunning. Most of all, though, “Steve” is a testament to what Sondheim calls “those good and crazy people my friends.”
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
http://www.thenewgroup.org/steve.html
Cast
Matt McGrath, Malcolm Gets, Mario Cantone, Jerry Dixon, Ashlie Atkinson, Francisco Pryor Garat
Open/Close Dates
Opening 11/3/2015
Closing 1/3/2016
Box Office
212-279-4200
Theatre Info
Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
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