Family ties — two heartbreaking to hilarious plays

Theater through the ages has put a chilling close-up camera on the sad truth that the family ties that bond too often wound and choke.
Two magnificent plays currently lighting up the new theater season will haunt your heart. John Tiffany’s exquisite revival of “The Glass Menagerie” brings a quartet of brilliant performances. Cherry Jones gives us a haunting Amanda Wingfield, a once well-to-do Southern belle, long abandoned by her husband has fallen on desperate times in Depression era St. Louis. Touching Celia Keenan- Bolger is her fragile, painfully shy, disabled daughter, Laura, using the frayed family sofa like a womb. An unforgettable Zachary Quinto narrates William’s wrenching dark memory play as rock solid brother Tom, the frustrated but devoted, loving protector of both his mother and sister, also trapped in a dead-end factory job. Finally, Brian J. Smith is perfection as the Gentleman Caller — William’s knife blow whose appearance, late in the play, as Tom’s friend at the factory who is the dinner guest so desperately hoped by mom to prove a suitor for her spinster daughter. It’s the “Caller,” whose sweet rapport with Laura as they discover a shared past awakes a hope that melts away with a revelation at the dinner table. This sharing one that will break your own heart — no matter how many productions of “Menagerie” you’ve seen. The dark memory laden mind set of the play is plu-perfectly mirrored in Bob Crowley’s shabby apartment set, Natasha Katz’ dimmed lighting, Nico Muhly’s (music) and Clive Goodwin’s (sound)! All keep us in a shadow world that only goes bright in those pre-devastating moments of the Second Act when hope flies from the apartment in a single sentence. It’s the players who shine in this ill-fated dim world — with the scepter of an outlandish Amanda in the faded ball gown she chooses to wear to that fated dinner — that makes this “The Glass Menagerie” magnificent, fulfilling theater. (Booth Theater, 222 West 45th St. Tickets at 800-432-7250 or telecharge.com)

‘Bad Jews’ brings tears of laughter
At the performance of “Bad Jews” I reviewed, the vitriol of aggressive, loud-mouthed Diana (Tracie Cheemo) — who prefers her Hebrew name — Daphna — had reached a vicious apex in her diatribe against her cousin Liam ((Michael Zegen) who had just missed his grandfather’s funeral (the lame excuse being that he dropped his iPhone from an Aspen ski lift). Now finally arrived in his younger brother’s studio apartment with his “shiksa” girlfriend in close tow, it’s less to pay homage to Poppy than lay claim to his grandfather’s “Chai”— a family relic protected, kept under his tongue, during the now departed old man’s long stay in a concentration camp. With Liam (whom Laura will only address as “Shlomo” his Hebrew name) as fierce a combatant for the relic as his cousin Daphna turns out to be, the onstage infighting had reached a fever pitch when the woman sitting directly behind me loudly blurted “Oy vey!” The audience burst into long gales of laughter that didn’t leave a dry eye in the house.

James Harmon’s “Bad Jews” is one of the funniest, most clever comedies to ever grace a New York stage and may well evoke “laugh-tears” on your own visit. But its bitter edge leaves one also reflective of what it takes to achieve even a sense of decent behavior in some family confrontations where convictions (deep or affected) and past events (real or re-arranged in memory by those hanging — or hung — on the family tree) are rarely without some squabbling in even the most harmonious of families.
Harmon’s play is wonderfully constructed — with the unlikely voice of reason coming from Liam’s fiancée Melody (terrific Molly Ranson) a very pretty, sweet, seemingly clueless music student — whose off-key rendition in the play is one of its many comic highlights. She delivers the playwright’s obvious message that we should realize what really matters in all relationships is accepting each other’s idiosyncrasies and forgiving sometimes bad judgment calls. And if Harmon’s humor borders — sometimes deliciously — on savage, credit goes to a grand cast headed by Cheemo as an unhappy, fiercely baiting young woman clinging to her “holier than thou” credo even when some of her pronouncements start to whither on the slippery vine of truth. It also includes gentle younger brother Jonah — wanting nothing but to be left in peace — with Phillip Ettinger making his few lines count a lot. Kudos to Daniel Aukens spot-on direction, essential in “Bad Jews” and to Dane Laffrey’s equally inspired costuming. In 100 minutes this battle royale will keep you grinning for a week! (Laura Pels Theater, 111 West 46th St., tickets at 212-3352-3101 or www.roundabouttheater.org)
CRITIC’S ALERT: This is the last week to catch 2013 Fringe Winner, “Peninsula” at The Players Theater (115 MacDougal St., tickets at 212-352-3101 or ovationtix.com) Only $18 to see Nathan Wright’s moving tale of a young man who escapes the poverty slums of Rio De Janeiro only to find his summer job as a migrant worker in North Michigan’s prosperous wine country is more fraught with danger than what he left behind. Exploring identity, power, desire and the confusion of change this powerful play approaches poetry.