Have you ever been in a theater where almost no one gets up during the intermission? If you answer yes, chances are you’ve been to a David Mamet play. He’s into writing these 70-minute plays and throwing in an intermission to make people believe he’s delivered a full evening in the theater. If only he would also add more characters, plot, substance.
Mamet’s new one, “The Penitent,” which opened Monday at the Atlantic Theater Company, isn’t so much a play as an argument. Mamet watchers are used to that. What makes “The Penitent” not only thinner but also phony is the final scene where a character lets go with two bomblets that pretty much negate the previous 70 minutes. You will not feel so much enlightened as cheated. It’s like that short story grade school students write where everything is revealed, at the very end, to have been a dream. Not that “The Penitent” is ever riveting, except in some of the downright looney things Mamet’s characters say, as if they inhabit an alternate universe or one that no longer exists.
A put-upon shrink (Chris Bauer being convincingly distraught throughout) has been accused of bigotry because he once wrote about homosexuality being “an aberration.” The problem is he didn’t. He instead wrote in some paper that it’s “an adaptation,” and a newspaper of record merely misquoted him. The shrink never gets around to revealing what makes homosexuality an adaptation, like that would make everything okay. Instead, the shrink and his wife (Rebecca Pidgeon indulging in the most overwrought mid-Atlantic accent this side of Norma Shearer) argue about how their lives have been ruined because it’s not enough that the newspaper of record wants to settle the matter by printing a retraction. This couple has apparently never heard of social media or 24-hour cable news, and Mamet is writing about the awesome power of print as though it’s 1984.
Complicating matters is that the shrink counseled a young homosexual, who went on to shoot ten people, hence the media’s interest. The shrink’s lawyer (Jordan Lage) advises him not to fight the newspaper of record because they have all the money in the world (more echoes of 1984, if not 1964), and after all, the media have already turned the mass murderer into the victim and the shrink into the villain, since the mass murderer might have a civil rights case on his hands because gay people are so good at playing the special-rights card.
But not to get worked up! Those two end-of-play bomblets let us know that nothing is as it first appeared.
Tim Mackabee has designed a stunningly spare set, composed of two walls, two chairs, and one table. In between the play’s many scenes, Donald Holder’s lighting design brings the illumination down to an ominous level. Under Neil Pepe’s direction, the actors move the chairs and table every which way in the relative darkness, while the two walls remain stationary, like monoliths from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It is amazing how many ways there are to arrange two chairs and one table.
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.