Big Name Value
I'm wary of "stars" on stage: Plays suffer when audiences come to see the actor, not the whole package (e.g. Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain, Madonna in Speed-the-Plow). So I drove to New Brunswick, N.J.'s George Street Playhouse with trepidation, fearing how an audience craving Jack Klugman (Quincy, Oscar from TV's The Odd Couple) would warp Jeffrey Sweet's fascinating play The Value of Names. Moreover, I wondered if the venerable 84-year-old, who lost half his larynx to throat cancer in 1989, could meet the play's challenges.
I came away cynical about audiences, but convinced by Klugman, as well as director James Glossman's superb production.
Sweet conjures an intriguing situation: Klugman's Benny Silverman overcame blacklisting during the 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee to enjoy sitcom success. We're immediately plunged into moral debate when daughter Norma announces that she's changing her name to distance herself professionally from Benny: "He steals my name," he replies, citing nemesis Leo Gershen, who identified supposed communists, "and you throw it away."
Benny and Norma's entertaining ripostes range from who judges art to the appropriateness of onstage nudity ("In your mind, it's about vulnerability," Benny quips. "In the audience's mind, it's about tits"), but are merely a warm-up for the main event: Leo is hired to direct the play that might launch Norma's stalled career, but will working with him betray Benny? Sweet (who teaches playwriting at the University of the Arts) engages us with larger issues of forgiveness and justice: Is discouraging Norma from working with Leo just more blacklisting? Can Leo be forgiven after four decades? This confrontation between intelligent, articulate and likable characters — reminiscent of George Bernard Shaw (and that's a mighty compliment) — makes terrific theater.
Klugman's heavily miked voice hits only two painful notes — gravel and wheeze — but he's utterly convincing, revealing Benny's keen wit, idealistic fervor and seething resentment. Fellow TV veteran (The Wonder Years) Dan Lauria's Leo is thin in comparison, a blustering caricature with painted gray hair. Spunky Liz Larsen's Norma, who connects scenes with narration, referees with aplomb.
Glossman's production boasts R. Michael Miller's lovely, spacious Malibu patio, Richard Currie's sunny lighting and witty sound ("There's No Business Like Show Business," Ethel Merman warbles cynically) by Christopher J. Bailey.
The real star, however, is Sweet's compact, clever script, which I fear soared over the heads of the starstruck queuing afterwards to buy Klugman's book Tony and Me.
The Value of Names
Through Dec. 17, George St. Playhouse,9 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, N.J.,732-246-7717, www.gsponline.org
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