Every now and then a play comes along and is so good it knocks you in the face. It’s rare, and for me, it happens most frequently at Lincoln Center’s Vivien Beaumont Theater. For it is there I saw Pride’s Crossing, Six Degrees of Separation, Marie Christine, Contact and The House of Blue Leaves, and many, many more productions. As a member, I try not to miss their programming, yet somehow I nearly let their latest DOMESTICATED slip through my fingers. I am thankful that I got my ticket booked and stopped into a talk back with the two key members of the cast last night, Jeff Goldblum and Laurie Metcalf, two of the finest actors in show business.
But you already know that.
What you don’t know is that they have chosen to star in a provocative play by Clybourne Park’s playwright, Bruce Norris and directed by Steppenwolf collaborator Anna D. Shapiro. During the talk back, they both compared reading the play to porn and strove not to give away too many details. They talked about the magic that took place during rehearsal. She said Jeff Goldblum showed up knowing every single line at their first meeting, and he praised her acting skills to no end. He called the play a poem; she said its about miscommunication. I left the talk back knowing very little about the play’s plot, happy that they didn’t give me any spoilers. All I knew was that I was in for a treat.
The funny thing is that Jeff Goldblum spends much of the play’s first act silent. Why? He has nothing to say. His character, Bill, is a famous NY politician (former gynecologist) is apologizing for sexual misconduct with his wife, Judy (Metcalf) standing next to him with a look of serious pain and humiliation. We soon find out that while engaging a 23-year old prostitute in a hotel room, he either pushes her or she accidentally knocks her head into the bed pole and falls into a coma with serious brain injuries. After having seen them both so jovial in the talk back, it was a bit of a shock to see them playing two people whose 17-year marriage has fallen into an abyss. He tells her it was his first time engaging with a hooker and there was no consummation. We watch her foolishly believe him and stand by his side, like many we have watched over the years (most recently Huma Weiner).
Until reality hits. The first act is about her response and his lack of words. Judy fights back – with her lawyer, a therapist, through her children, through the media attention. He watches the impact the situation on his family and simply puts his head down on the table, appearing to yearn for redemption over his infidelity (37 prostitutes? That’s the number his lawyer reports to Judy who is gob smacked at a popping $74,000 of their children’s college funds).
Thus begins the story of the difference between him and her, hence men and women.
The next act revolves around his “redemption” – he moves out, his teenage daughter turns against him, he can’t find work as a doctor, a transsexual beats him up in a bar, a Muslim patient who reveals the abuse she received in her native homeland, a disapproving partner and, alas, a prostitute who comes out of her coma. All along the way, his adopted daughter, Cassidy, delivers a slide show about mating patterns in nature. It includes sea horses, worms, pheasants and other animals assumedly related to her parents who no longer communicate. Bill doesn’t seem to think he’s done anything wrong. He blames Judy and her lack of attention to his private parts. He never takes responsibility and as much as we want to find out what happens between him and his wife in the end (I hope she stays way), it’s unclear even after she smashes his beloved guitar in his apartment to bits…which he fully deserved. How much more could she be expected to take?
This play, in my eyes, is a feminist point of view written by a man, and I so applaud the playwright and director. It’s pieced together skillfully. In the end, we know that Judy has written a book and while on a tour of her daughter’s college campus, she gets asked when she will be running for office.
She’s risen, he’s fallen. He will never get back up, she will.
Once again, Lincoln Center Theater has given me a play I will never forget, a play that has sparked my feminist side and lit it on fire.
You have about two weeks left to see this show – book tickets here.
Disclosure: I am a member of Lincoln Center Theater and have been for nearly 20 years.
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