NY Theater: "Abigail's Party" offers sharp, discomforting vision

Marriage has little hope in Mike Leigh's black comedy

By Lucy Komisar

British playwright Mike Leigh � well known as the filmmaker who chronicles the dreary lives of the British working class � here provides us with his view that lives of the lower middle class can also be hellish. This play, directed with sharp edges by Scott Elliott, is an excellent production that will make audiences uncomfortable � for several reasons.

Written in 1977, it is about the trap of marriage between partners who seem to have nothing in common except the desire to be wed. "Divorce, divorce!" one would scream today. Underlying the story is a subtle attack on noisy, aggressive women.

Though Leigh seems to be assailing an institution, or at least the way it operates, his sympathy appears overwhelmingly for the men. There is no feminist insight here into the empty life of Beverly (Jennifer Jason Leigh � no relation to the playwright), the stay-at-home wife of real estate agent Laurence (Max Baker). She is a nasty, selfish, self-absorbed person whose main interest is figuring out how to spend his money. Created from every color in the palette by Ms. Leigh, she is snippy, harsh, and shrill. She wears a clingy long dress with feathery sleeves. Her favorite house decoration is a multicolored fiber light that changes colors. She also likes a tacky gadget that pops open to display cigarettes like petals of a flower.

Beverly has invited a few neighbors for drinks at her suburban London house. The new resident, Angela (Elizabeth Jasicki), is a nurse, but one would not like to be the patient of someone with so few apparent smarts. Given just the right perky and childlike demeanor by Jasicki, she wears barrettes in her hair and a little girl short dress with a big lace collar. She grins and giggles behind black rimmed glasses, but her voice, too, is shrill.

So what kind of men do these women marry? Frankly, neither is a brilliant catch. Laurence, strongly portrayed by Baker, is edgy, nervous, full of energy, yet he is so obsequious to his clients that you realize he is terrified at not making a living. He fantasies himself as a man of culture, but it's a facade. When Beverly's crudeness embarrasses him and he mounts a small rebellion, it is expressed by putting Beethoven on the turntable and showing off an embossed bound volume of Shakespeare and a Van Gogh print. He acknowledges that the Shakespeare is not for reading.

Tony (Darren Goldstein), Angie's husband, a computer technician and former soccer player, is so silent, he is almost catatonic. He grunts in monosyllables. His expression is dour, brooding. You get the feeling that Angela is voluble to take up the slack. His comments to her are curt, unkind. But he doesn't show much penchant for any human connections; he hardly reacts to Beverly's attempts at seduction.

Is every female resident of Richmond Road a screechy woman from hell? Not at all. Leigh obviously favors Susan (Lisa Emery, appropriately ill at ease), who is sophisticated -- she brings Beaujolais and asks for sherry, seems intelligent, has a low voice and is not shrill. In fact, she is so quiet and subdued, that she doesn't speak unless she is spoken to and obviously knows her place. She is staid and conservatively dressed in a green vest and beige blouse and skirt. Though divorced, she does not speak ill of her ex-husband.

Obviously, Susan is the model woman, just the kind that Laurence should have married. However, she is the mother of Abigail, who is throwing an unseen, slightly wild teen party. Does Leigh suggest that Abigail is about to start the whole rotten loop all over again? Is Abigail's party the trap that ensnares men into this rotten system? This is a well-designed play with questionable politics.

Beverly was first performed by Alison Steadman, Leigh's wife, whom he subsequently divorced.

"Abigail's Party." Written by Mike Leigh. Directed by Scott Elliott. Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Max Baker, Elizabeth Jasicki, Lisa Emery, Darren Goldstein.

The New Group at Acorn Theatre Mon-Sat 8pm; Sat 2pm, Dec 21, 28 at 2pm; no perf Dec 24, Dec 26. Through Jan. 7, 2006. $51.25. 212-279-4200. http://www.thenewgroup.org/

by Carol Rosegg.