Joshua Harmon is the master of the rant. He earned that accolade with his last play, “Admissions,” in which a white prep-school student delivers a lengthy screed on the injustice of his being rejected by Yale after his less worthy biracial friend has been accepted at the Ivy League school.
Harmon is a master of the rant for two reasons: The student’s very length speech in “Admissions” is alternately funny, absurd, logical, glib and intensely heart-felt. The other reason is that Harmon repeats that success not once but several times in his new play, “Skintight,” which opened Thursday at Roundabout’s Off Broadway Laura Pels Theatre.
The unfairness he documents this time has nothing to do with race and everything to do with age. Young people are attractive (well, some of them are) and old people are not. As described by two of Harmon’s characters, even the middle-aged have lost their sex appeal and grow hair in weird places.
Since Jodi (Idina Menzel) is a fortysomething woman, she hasn’t yet sprouted hair on her knuckles or in her ears. But her fiftysomething ex-husband has, and so it’s humiliating that she’s the one being dumped for a younger woman, a 24-year-old spinning instructor with breast implants.
We learn all about this split and her ex’s encroaching second wedding in the opening scene of “Skintight.” Jodi just flew across the country, she’s tired and cranky and she made the trip more to escape her ex in Los Angeles than to see her very successful fashion-designer father, Elliot (Jack Wetherall), who would rather not have his daughter there to help celebrate his 70th birthday.
The most tantalizing aspect of Harmon’s new play — besides the fact that it’s very funny and poignant and well-crafted — is that the playwright explores the unfairness of Jodi’s predicament not by dramatizing her failed heterosexual relationship; instead, he lets us mull over the supposedly successful same-sex affair that Elliot is having with a 20-year-old man named Trey (Will Brittain), who is very buff and in one scene walks around in a jock strap — to the dismay of Jodi and the rapt attention of her own out 20-year-old son, Benjamin (the wonderfully nebbish Eli Gelb).
And there’s something else that Harmon stresses without ever having any of his characters talk, discuss or rant about it: Ageism is very much a guy thing, particularly an affluent guy thing, whether the perpetrators are gay or straight. Women are on the receiving end — and sometimes men are too: just ask Elliot’s ex-lover turned manservant, Jeff (Stephen Carrasco), who doesn’t get many lines but is expert at impersonating a slow-walking phantom to Wetherall’s vampire of a man.
There’s a scene at night where Elliot, standing on the upstairs railing of Lauren Helpern’s well-appointed and extremely sterile living room set, calls to his “partner” downstairs in order to get him back into bed and, more important, prevent a midnight tryst in front of the flickering TV set between the two 20-year-olds. Elliot’s pointed request is as creepy as it is smart. Pat Collins’ lighting sets the tone perfectly.
The beauty of Daniel Aukin’s direction is that he keeps us guessing about each and every character’s real motives until the end, and even after the curtain has dropped.
“Skintight” might be the first great post-gay gay play. Most of the characters are homosexual, and not just incidentally so. But here’s the “post” part: Not one of them sees himself as a victim, unless by victim you mean that they’re trapped by a toxic brew of hormones and testosterone that force them to value beauty over substance, lust over love.
Jodi definitely claims victim status, but she is far from guilt-free, at least not as portrayed by Menzel. It’s weird to call hers a breakthrough performance when this actress already has a Tony Award to her credit, but the nuanced comic timing she brings to her distressed character is masterful. Menzel also softens Jodi’s victimhood by making her pampered to the extreme. Just check out her total lack of respect for Trey, who gives twinks a good name — at least as portrayed by the talented Brittain.
The word “pampered” is mentioned only once in “Admissions,” yet it’s that other sin at the heart of Harmon’s plays. His characters don’t have truly pressing problems. They’re not hungry, homeless or about to be deported. What they do have is the luxury of thinking that tomorrow’s Botox treatment will bring them happiness.
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.