By Kyle Osborne
The Folger Theatre has a way of amplifying the mood and tone of each play presented there. There’s something in the air inside that house that is nearly indescribable, but in the case of writer and director Theresa Rebeck’s The Way of the World, it translates into big laughs and hearty shoulder-shakes.
The update of William Congreve’s Restoration play from around 1700 is a hilarious romp with something to say about the 1% who gossip and screw their way through the summers in The Hamptons, but it never lets its biting observations get in the way of the comedy.
Henry (Luigi Sottile) and friend Charles (Brandon Espinoza, right) Photo: Teresa Wood
As the lights come up, studly Henry (Luigi Sottile, channeling a cool mixture of Matthew McConnaughey and Heath Ledger) is loving life as the village scoundrel, having recently bedded his girlfriend Mae’s Aunt of a certain age. Mae is an earnest young lady worth a cool 400 million bucks, who would love nothing more than to travel to Haiti to help others and give away her fortune. Her Aunt Rene, on the other hand, is the most conspicuous consumer on Long Island, filling her beach mansion with the most expensive playthings money can buy. With this much money floating around, can any relationship be real? Especially a romantic relationship?
Kristine Nielsen stars as the ever-watchful Aunt Rene. Photo: Teresa Wood
One supposes that not much has changed among the hoity-toity class in the past few centuries, but Rebeck’s adaptation is so timely, it seems as if it were written three weeks ago (it dates back to only last year). In fact, Aunt Rene gets off a line that references a recent Presidential proclamation about “S-hole countries,” only she stops juuust short of actually saying it. Still, she elicits a response so big, she has to pause while the cheering audience almost cathartically gets its ya-yas out. And about that actress—Rene is played by Broadway’s Kristine Nielsen in a performance that is so…so…BIG that you have to remind yourself that she is being directed by the woman who conceived of this character—so it must be exactly what was intended. Once you realize that the veteran is playing to the balcony by design (it doesn’t take long) you can’t stop yourself from being enveloped by her delicious decadence. Nielsen knows here away around a stage
Heiress Mae (Eliza Huberth) waits to have her ex-boyfriend Henry (Luigi Sottile) removed from the party, as guests Reg (Elan Zafir) and Charles (Brandon Espinoza, far right) Photo: Teresa Wood
Someone mentioned to me that the play is populated by unlikable (deplorable?) characters, but I was very fond of every one of them. They see themselves as noble job-creators who pay thousands for ugly dresses and hundreds to have their lawns painted green, which makes them perfectly ridiculous for the audience to laugh at. Again, catharsis in these troubling times.
Also swinging for the fences is Elan Zafir as Reg. Zafir, like Nielsen, lets it all hang out in a performance that isn’t over the top, but it’s right up against the top. It works. The cast are a solid ensemble of actors who wear their characters without a shred inauthenticity. The sped-up reconciliation between Henry and Mae in the second act feels a little too “Love Boat” under the circumstances, but Eliza Huberth, radiant as Mae, comes round to believing her man, so why shouldn’t we?
Heiress Mae (Eliza Huberth) and Henry ( Luigi Sottile) Photo: Teresa Wood
Alexander Dodge’s sets makes excellent use of the finite space and Costume designer Linda Cho has put forth a collection that ranges from super sexy to absolutely hideous, always where appropriate.
While Folger is the preeminent place for Shakespeare, it’s fun, every now and then, to let one’s hair down and re-arrange the furniture, leave the seat up, and the door open. Settling in with this lot is a fun way to breeze through an irreverent evening.
The Way of the World continues at Folger Theatre through February 11. For tickets and more information, please visit: https://www.folger.edu/folger-theatre