Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’m using the template from my “Literary Society of Broadway” series to share some brief thoughts on Theresa Rebeck’s 2006 play The Scene. An intimate off-Broadway production officially opened in January 2007 with a small cast that featured both Tony Shalhoub and future The Middle star Patricia Heaton!
THE SCENE (2007)
Logline: An out-of-work actor supported by his high-powered wife has an affair with an ambitious networker.
Author: Theresa Rebeck | Director: Rebecca Teichman
Off-Broadway Cast: Tony Shalhoub, Patricia Heaton, Anna Camp, Christopher Evan Welch
World Premiere Cast: Stephen Barker Turner, Carla Harting, Anna Camp, David Wilson Barnes
Thoughts: This is my first time reading a Theresa Rebeck play and I’m impressed. Her style, at least here, feels like it sits on foundations laid by Neil Simon — the dialogue is natural but comedic, the story follows neurotic characters and their complicated relationships, and the world is an urban landscape where show business is central. But she’s notably darker, with more of an interest in cultural critique — particularly of this industry and the people drawn to it. It’s show biz about show biz in a sense — but thankfully within the context of a richer character study, mostly centered around an out-of-work actor who blows up his status quo and makes it even worse amid some version of a midlife crisis. In the demolition range are a goofy pal, an intense wife, and the fatuous girl who enables his self-destruction. That last role (played by Anna Camp off-Broadway and in the preceding World Premiere production) is perhaps the most interesting — she’s a mass of contradictions, earning the biggest laughs from her ridiculousness while also existing as a true antagonist to each of the other characters and ultimately personifying the ideas Rebeck is lambasting in her takedown of soulless ambition and insincere social posturing. At the core of the text, however, is the actor himself, an idiotic moper whose essential disregard for others in an attempt to improve his life only leads to further despair. Tony Shalhoub took on that part — and that strikes me as excellent casting, for his inherent likability would be necessary to pull off a character so fundamentally self-loathing and ruinous. Also, I can just imagine Patricia Heaton, in between Everybody Loves Raymond and The Middle (well, Back To You, really) as the cutting but straightforward wife. In fact, casting known TV stars in this dark comedy where the TV ecosystem is itself being mocked would be thematically corroborative. And though comedic, I’m sure it was a nice change of pace for both — Heaton, especially — with a sharper edge than the material for which she was best known, taking advantage of her practiced skills while also stretching some proverbial muscles.
Jackson’s Verdict: Strong characters, strong drama, strong laughs.
Come back next week for another Wildcard! And stay tuned Tuesday for more Middle!