Casting is everything, especially when a play presents a basically distasteful character and asks us to identify — or, at least, to understand.
In such theatrical situations, it helps when the actor playing the dark protagonist exudes not only charm but is innately likable. Jim Parsons, with his Nice Guy persona, made the viper-tongued Michael in “The Boys in the Band” extremely watchable. In Penelope Skinner’s “Angry Alan,” John Krasinski provides a similar charisma that puts the Roger character on the side of the audience until, one vexed comment after another, we turn on the guy.
Krasinski’s task here is far more challenging than Parsons’ in “Boys,” if for no other reason than Roger is the only character we meet in the flesh in what is almost, but not quite, a one-person 85-minute show. “Angry Alan” opened Wednesday at the new Studio Seaview after its 2018 world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival.
Roger thinks of himself as a victim of reverse discrimination. He’s divorced, and even though he lost his high-paying dream job at AT&T, the courts require Roger to pay top-dollar child support for a teenage son he rarely sees. And as male misfortune would have it, no sooner did Roger move in with his new girlfriend than she take up with a leftist-thinking group of artists who see nothing wrong with admiring Picasso’s art, despite Picasso having been a sexist; watching Woody Allen movies, despite the whole Mia/Soon-Yi/Dylan Farrow mess; and, perhaps worst of all, turning the “50 Shades of Grey” franchise into a huge success, despite all those books and movies being downright terrible.
Under Sam Gold’s sharp direction, “Angry Alan” is one of those plays that evokes very different reactions depending on your gender. Most of the laughter at the preview I attended had a distinctly feminine timber to it, and it wasn’t just the ha-ha variety. It was the kind of laughter that puts up a wall of resistance, saying, “Roger, stop being an a-hole!”
Although written and staged four years before Kimberly Belflower’s “John Proctor Is the Villain,” now on Broadway, “Angry Alan” fits into the current vogue for plays about bad-acting white straight men. The difference is, “Angry Alan” shows why men like Roger act the way they do. “John Proctor” merely incites us to lynch the creep.
Roger is angry, but as cunningly played by Krasinski, he is also kinda sweet, which is why, I think, the laughter from the men in the audience may be far less pointed in its attack. Krasinski expertly dons lamb’s clothing to play a man who’s basically a pig. Krasinski is also very effective at playing all the people in Roger’s life. He makes us want to go to the “Angry Alan” website, to which Roger has become addicted and to which he even donates one month of child support.
The more Roger visits “Angry Alan” the more limited his world view becomes. The set design by Dot aptly visualizes his state of mind. At first glance, Roger’s living room appears very detailed if rather generically appointed. Only later does the set reveal itself as a bunch of painted flats.
Skinner too often marks her criticism of Roger’s behavior by giving him little asides that directly contradict what he has just told us. Krasinski handles these comments beautifully, tossing them off as afterthoughts that the audience doesn’t catch until a moment or two later.
Roger becomes so enamored of Angry Alan that he travels to hear him speak in person. Skinner makes one big mistake here. Roger is surprised to see a few women at Angry Alan’s male-consciousness-raising confab, only to learn that one of those females is a journalist, who, in turn, tells him off when he attempts to be sociable or pick her up. (We’re never quite sure which.) Sorry: No decent journalist writing a story about such a confab would ever reveal his or her true opinion to an attendee. The reporter is there to ask questions, and becoming an active participant by verbally trashing a guy like Roger is to stop soaking up the color necessary to write a good story.
Now that I got that off my reporter chest, Skinner missed a dramatic opportunity here. The female journalist should have led Roger on, letting him think she was writing a positive piece. When he then reads the finished article in the safety of his vacuum of a living room, only then does Roger realize how he has been used, giving him even more reason for his feelings of victimization.
“Angry Alan” nicely recovers from this big misfire with a surprise ending that should remain a surprise. In the Playbill program, five actors’ names are listed as “cameos.” I’ve never before seen that credit used in the theater, and four of the names are actors who only appear on stage as large photo projections. The fifth is Ryan Colone, who, in about only 10 minutes of stage time, gives “Angry Alan” a most explosive ending.
The post ‘Angry Alan’ Off Broadway Review: John Krasinski Expertly Dons Lamb’s Clothing to Play a Pig appeared first on TheWrap.