The good news on the Broadway revival of “Six Degrees of Separation” is great news. Twenty-seven years after the debut of John Guare’s comedy of manners and mores in Manhattan, “Six Degrees” retains its place as one of the great American plays of the late 20th century.
The revival, which opened Tuesday at the Barrymore Theatre, also is a reminder of a time in the theater when two- and three-handers did not dominate the nonprofit world. True, Lincoln Center Theater, which originally produced the Guare play, is now staging a new American drama, “Oslo,” with a cast of 18. The cast of 18 in “Six Degrees” is especially astounding because it is possible to imagine the play with just its three principal characters: Ouisa and Flan Kittredge, the art-dealer couple living on the Upper East Side in 1990, and the young black man Paul, who is the alleged son of Sidney Poitier.
The thing is, without the other 15 actors, we’d miss the community that Paul so desperately wants to be a part of. He not only yearns to be Ouisa and Flan’s son, he wants to belong to their world of wealth, grace, privilege, elegance, and entitlement. Who wouldn’t?
Guare’s insightful portrait of that high society survives even Trip Cullman’s far too brash direction of this revival. Memory can be a tricky thing, but one thing Stockard Channing and John Cunningham managed to do in the original LCT production as Ouisa and Flan (only WASPs could tolerate such names) was to give the impression of one big embrace.
It wasn’t only Paul they welcomed into their fabulous Fifth Avenue apartment with its two-sided Kandinsky painting. They welcomed the audience, too, since Ouisa and Flan address us throughout much of the play. In addition to possessing innate charm, they are also money-obsessed people to whom art no longer means much, except what selling it can buy them. And as played by Channing and Sutherland, this couple was charming, polite, delightful, and you understood why Paul would be attracted to them.
Cullman directs “Six Degrees” as a not very sophisticated farce, especially in the play’s first half. Allison Janney and John Benjamin Hickey are diverting as Ouisa and Flan; they display razor-sharp timing, but they go for the laughs by stressing the characters’ materialism. Paul is no doubt attracted to their wealth. He would never be attracted to them as people.
The broadness of these two performances also undercuts the role of Paul, who is the alpha character here. He’s the one who’s supposed to dominate as he cleverly manipulates his way into the Kittredge home with breathtaking speed.
Despite the unnecessary competition from Janney and Hickey, Corey Hawkins (“Straight Outta Compton”) immediately takes focus, keeps it and even manages to give a slyly malevolent undertone to what could be Paul’s attraction to Ouisa. Or what he wants Ouisa to think is his attraction to her.
Two of Ouisa and Flan’s friends are also taken in by Paul’s charade, and unfortunately Lisa Emery and Michael Countryman’s performances turn them into repellent caricatures. Even coarser are the portrayals of the two couples’ respective children (Colby Minifie, Keenan Jolliff, and Ned Riseley). The kids’ self-indulgent showdown with their parents brings down the house, but also cheapens the story. While there’s supposed to be only six degrees of separation between any two people in the world, there doesn’t have to be this wide a gulf between parent and child.
After this onstage melee, Cullman’s direction relaxes considerably for the play’s second half. It has no other direction to go. A quiet respite is the performance of Chris Perfetti. He plays the college student (dubbed Henry Higgins) who knows all the East Side families whom Paul wants to meet and seduce. Perfetti and Hawkins’ slow, mutual manipulation of each other is this production’s high point.
Paul’s seduction of a young couple (Peter Mark Kendall and Sarah Mezzanote) he meets in Central Park also brings down the temperature. Guare’s writing astounds in its swift handling of the exposition here, and Kendall’s retelling of his character’s quick demise brings a shocking reality to this utterly improbable tragedy.
Also fine are Janney’s last moments on stage. Finally, she is the everymom of Paul’s dreams. Janney is one of those rare performers whose patrician bearing and honeyed vocals make us want to go on her journey the moment she appears. After all the early noise and hoopla of this production, her innate charms are given full room to breathe.
18 All-Time Great Tony Awards Performances, From 'Dreamgirls' to 'Hamilton' (Videos)
"Cabaret" (1967)
Joel Grey sang "Willkommen" to the big time, winning both a Tony (and later an Oscar) playing the M.C. in this musical set in the early days of Nazi Germany.
"Promises, Promises" (1969)
OK, the song "Turkey Lurkey" frankly doesn't make any sense -- and the whole office holiday party is kind of shoehorned into the plot. (The show's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," however, became a big hit for Dionne Warwick.) But Michael Bennett's choreography is head-bobbingly, arm-spinningly awesome.
"A Chorus Line" (1976)
The full "I Hope I Get It!" opening number from the quintessential backstage show -- amazing how long CBS let the numbers run back in the day. Bonus for "Gilmore Girls" fans: That's Kelly Bishop as the haughty dancer who says, "I had it when I was in the front."
"Sweeney Todd" (1979)
Angela Lansbury won the fourth of her five Tony's playing the daffy Mrs. Lovett, the baker of "The Worst Pies in London," in Stephen Sondheim's dark musical.
"Dreamgirls" (1982)
Jennifer Holliday's rendition of "And I'm Telling You..." has been widely imitated, and this is the performance that is most often imitated. A-ma-zing.
"Cats" (1983)
Andrew Lloyd Webber continued his domination of Broadway with this feline musical starring Betty Buckley as Grizabella. Interestingly, the breakout ballad "Memory" was one of the few songs whose lyrics didn't come from T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats."
"Grand Hotel" (1990)
Michael Jeter, perhaps best known from the sitcom "Evening Shade," was a rubber-limbed sensation playing a tipsy bookkeeper in the number "Let's Take a Glass Together."
"Rent" (1996)
Jonathan Larson's rock opera version of "La Boheme" gained extra poignance with his unexpected death after the first Off Broadway preview. The show became a phenomenon, and launched the careers of Idina Menzel, Jesse L. Martin and Taye Diggs.
"Chicago" (1997 revival)
Bebe Neuwirth and Ann Reinking displayed all the athleticism of Bob Fosse's original choreography in the hit revival of Kander & Ebb's musical about the dawn of celebrity criminals (which led to the Oscar-winning 2002 movie).
"The Lion King" (1998)
While Disney's stage version of the animated movie swept most of the major awards in 1998, we chose the opening number from the 2008 telecast -- celebrating the show's 10th anniversary and with clearer shots of Julie Taymor's magnificent puppets and stagecraft.
"Wicked" (2004)
Idina Menzel may have had some cold-induced pitchiness on the final note, but she (and co-star Kristin Chenoweth) are still pretty sensational on the now-standard showstopper "Defying Gravity."
"The Drowsy Chaperone" (2006)
Sutton Foster shows off while insisting that she doesn't want to show off no more in this delightful number.
"Spring Awakening" (2007)
Duncan Sheik's rock musical about rebellious teens shook up the staid world of Broadway with a just-mouthed rendition of "Totally F---ed" performed by very young Lea Michele, Jonathan Groff, John Gallagher Jr. and Skylar Astin.
"Gypsy" (2008 revival)
Everything came up roses for Patti LuPone, who won her second Tony Award playing the irrepressible Mama Rose in the classic musical about showbiz striving.
Neil Patrick Harris' Tony Opening Number (2013)
It's hard to fill a space as cavernous as Radio City Music Hall -- but NPH did just that with a "bigger" number (written by "Hamilton" composer Lin-Manuel Miranda) that included high steps, high notes, leaps, magic, shout-outs to "How I Met Your Mother" fans and even Mike Tyson. Wow.
James Corden's Tony Opening Number (2016)
The hard-working late-night host (and a Tony winner himself) did his own version of a dream-big number, running through a dozen classic Broadway musicals from "Les Miz" to "Fiddler on the Roof" to "Annie."
"Hamilton " (2016)
Audiences at home finally got a chance to see a slice of the buzzed-about hip-hop hit, which even scored an intro from Barack and Michelle Obama.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Drama Students Sing "Seasons of Love" (2018)
There wasn't a dry eye in Radio City Music Hall when students from Parkland, Florida, performed the anthem from "Rent" months after a horrific mass shooting killed 17 of their classmates and teachers. The Tonys had honored their drama teacher, Melody Herzfeld, with a special award.
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A look back at some of Broadway’s highest kicks (and notes) over the history of the Tony telecast
"Cabaret" (1967)
Joel Grey sang "Willkommen" to the big time, winning both a Tony (and later an Oscar) playing the M.C. in this musical set in the early days of Nazi Germany.
Robert Hofler, TheWrap's lead theater critic, has worked as an editor at Life, Us Weekly and Variety. His books include "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson," "Party Animals," and "Sexplosion: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange, How a Generation of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos." His latest book, "Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne," is now in paperback.