As an audience member, the most thrilling moments in theater are when you forget for a moment that you’re watching actors, that they’re reciting memorized lines, and that you’ve got to get home to walk the dog. For a moment, you’re just watching people engaged in conversation.
In
The Busy World Is Hushed, at Playwrights Horizons, I experienced this second sensation a couple of times, and it was wonderful. When the blackout came to signal the end of Act One, I almost jumped, as I had literally forgotten that Intermission was looming. If the rest of Keith Bunin’s new play never lives up to those moments of beautiful forgetfulness, I’ll at least have that theater experience to savor.
Jill Clayburgh stars as Hannah, a minister writing a new book on Jesus (because we don’t have enough already - don’t shoot the messenger; the characters make that comment too). She hires a young, gay writer, Brandt (Hamish Linklater) to ghostwrite the story. Brandt is struggling with his own faith, as his father’s just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He also falls madly in love with Hannah’s estranged and unsettled son, Thomas (Luke Macfarlane), who falls madly in love with him back.
Does this mean Church Lady’s going to rally up Satan? Hardly. Hannah’s thrilled at the coupling, as her son can’t seem to find his way through life and needs a solid rock like Brandt to keep him safe and sound. Hannah’s long-ago husband walked into (not on) the water years ago, and Thomas has never reconciled himself with the death or his mother’s religious beliefs.
That synopsis pretty much sums up most of the action of the play, as, in the end, not a lot more happens; and what does happen you will have most likely figured out during that intermission. One could leave Busy World halfway through, ask a companion how it all turns out, and not be much worse for the wear.
What starts out as a promising and ingratiating story, ends up with lots of compact clichés. When Clayburgh makes a terrific comment in the beginning of Act One about the 1970s having a lot to answer for, she almost seems to be pointing sarcastically at her own film career (the wonderfully psychobabble-ish An Unmarried Woman comes to mind) and the plays of that time (the homo-spiritual Mass Appeal comes to mind).
Both of those tales were dated quickly, and Busy World is their rebirth. Hannah holes herself up with her apartment of books (the Scenic Design by Allen Moyer is a wonderful hodge-podge of dusty file cabinets, wood ceilings, and stained-glass windows), unable to move out of theology and into the real world. Her own gay son can’t seem to stay anywhere for more than a second (Macfarlane is all trembles and frantic motion from the minute he walks onstage), and likens The Gospels to a ghost story. "Do you ever think the baby Jesus didn’t want all that attention?" he says to Mom in one of the play’s many clever one-liners. Brandt is the dutiful son (to his father, and to Hannah’s lack of one), whose faith struggles we’ve seen in everything from Woody Allen’s funniest films to the very un-funny The Exorcist.
Not that you have to come up with a new plot when you write a new play. After all, Woody Allen got his ideas from Tolstoy, and the Exorcist comes from, well, the bible. You do have to find a new way of approaching a subject. Since Bunin doesn’t give us anything new, we fall upon the direction and the actors for inspiration.
Clayburgh is a force to be reckoned with: Tiny and full of fire, she’s got that nice mix of sweet older woman who’d you help cross the street, and terrifying Bible belter. Both sides work to her advantage, as you know (like Brandt) that you’d learn a lot from this woman, but you’re not sure (like Thomas) you’d want her as your own mother. She strains a bit when she has her most dramatic moments, and you wonder if it’s because she’s looking for more dramatics where they don’t exist.
Macfarlane looks the part, but he’s miscast. Since Brandt falls in love with him immediately, you want to see the side that’s spiritually irresistible to him, not just physically. The heartbreak of these Lonesome Lotharios is that you get so caught up in being caught up, you almost don’t notice they’ve left you long ago. Since Macfarlane’s Thomas has pretty much left the building as soon as he enters it, we know that Brandt’s a doomed Juliet and wonder why he’s so blind as not to realize it himself. Almost.
Linklater does such an excellent job as the love-struck kid that he just about overcomes the plot and casting problems. As an actor, he’s physically all over the place, fingers curling, hair-pulling, eyes on both sides of the stage at once. Just when you want to slap some Stella Adler sense into him, he delivers a line so razor sharp and cued in, the whole room gets pulled into his focus. The result is effortless effort, when it works.
Which brings us back to the beginning. When Brandt and Hannah have their early on talks, both of them are so good you will get carried away with them. They could be talking about religion, homosexuality, or the weather. We don’t care. We’re just enjoying them. Director Mark Brokaw has built that beautiful space for them to create in, and they fill it up like God candy. For the rest of this play to be as entertaining, it would have taken more insight, stronger writing, and more risks. It would have taken a leap of faith.
Through July 9. Playwrights Horizons’ Mainstage Theater (416 W. 42nd Street). Tickets are $65. Call Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 or visit www.playwrightshorizons.org.
