The Whirligig
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Cititour.com Review
Everything revolves around Julie, both literally and figuratively, in Hamish Linklater’s ambitious and moving new play, “The Whirligig,” now being given a top-notch production by director Scott Elliot and The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center. True, Linklater’s grasp doesn’t always match his reach; the play clearly aims for (and falls short of) that perfect Chekhovian mixture of comedy and tragedy. Nonetheless, the author (better known as an award-winning actor) is to be applauded for crafting a relatable and compelling story -- one brought to life here by a superb ensemble.
When we enter the theater, Julie (Grace Van Patten) is already on stage, lying in a bed and hooked up to an IV, in the center of Derek McLane’s constantly rotating set. (The fact that the bed is in the backyard of a house is the first clue that everything is not as it seems.) While she looks like a teenager, Julie turns out to be a 20-something who is dying due to many years of drug use, a situation that has prompted the coming together of her long-divorced parents, local drama teacher Michael (the always extraordinary Norbert Leo Butz) and author Kristina (the fine British actress Dolly Wells, in a nicely understated turn).
Julie’s return to her childhood home in the Berkshires also causes the reappearance of sundry people from her past, who (in almost Shakespearean fashion) turn out to be more connected to each other than they first appear.
Take Julie’s former best friend Trish (“Girls” star Zosia Mamet projecting equal doses of sarcasm and pathos) and her husband, local bartender Gregory (the very good Alex Hurt), who ends up serving drinks to Michael’s pretentious, alcoholic colleague, Mr. Cormeny (Jon DeVries, providing needed comic relief). And then there’s the skittish, not-too-bright, out-on-parole Derrick (an excellent Jonny Orsini), the brother of Julie’s handsome doctor Patrick (a fine Noah Bean), who also turns out to have his own very personal degree of separation from Julie.
Admittedly, some of the interrelated coincidences pile up a bit too frequently (for example, why did Patrick and Gregory have to both work at the same bar frequented by Michael?). Still, a few take longer to come out than others. For example, Trish and Derrick end up for quite a long time on a tree branch outside Julie’s window (one of the best scenes in the play) but don’t discover their “connection” to each other until shortly before the play’s conclusion.
Even when the plot falters slightly, or Linklater throws in an unnecessary or unearned joke, there is always remarkable psychological acuity in how he treats familial relationships, from Michael and Kristina’s uneasy return to cohabitation to the true brotherly bond between Derrick and Patrick. Van Patten even gets to deftly shows us the feisty, unhappy Julie at 18, a young woman grappling uneasily with her parents’ fractured marriage.
Not only does each actor get a vividly wrought character to play, each with significant flaws and virtues, but as it spins and spins, “The Whirligig” shows us the seemingly endless and not immediately visible sides of each person’s struggle to tackle mere survival and find grace under pressure.
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
http://www.thenewgroup.org/the-whirligig.html
Cast
Noah Bean, Norbert Leo Butz, Jon deVries, Alex Hurt, Zosia Mamet, Jonny Orsini, Grace Van Patten, Dolly Wells
Open/Close Dates
Opening 5/4/2017
Closing 6/18/2017
Box Office
212-279-4200
Theatre Info
Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
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