Review: AFTER-PLAY Is Back on Stage, at YCP TheaterWorks

For those of a certain age who well recall the antics of comedy duo Stiller and Meara on TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show in the mid-20th Century, one of the characters in After-Play – namely brassy, wisecracking Renee (an ideally cast Kate Gleeson) -- will be readily recognizable as the team’s distaff half, Anne Meara, author of this intriguing work that’s not exactly a comedy nor drama but fits the portmanteau genre that wants to work both sides of the divide -- a dramedy.  

After-Play is produced by YCP TheaterWorks, with performances through June 22 at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Hudson Valley in Croton-on-Hudson, Westchester County, N.Y. (YCPTW.org)

It's worth noting that those much more familiar with this century than the prior one will know Anne Meara’s real-life spouse Jerry Stiller as the man who made famous the phony holiday of “Festivus for the rest of us” as Jerry Seinfeld’s bonkers father on the cult sitcom. And to complete the Stiller of it all, who doesn’t know of the comedy couple’s real-life offspring, Ben.

Were After-Play a novel instead of a stage play, it would qualify as a roman a clef (where real persons known to the author are disguised behind made-up names). It’s clear that Ms. Meara is sourcing her life’s work and the showbiz types she collaborated with and befriended along the way, such as TV and theater comedy writers.

Even the opening moments of After-Play read like the setup for a Borscht Belt joke: “Two couples walk into a restaurant and one of them says to the others…yadda yadda.” And off to the races we go.

Ms. Meara's characters’ wide-ranging conversations shape the arc of the play, covering a range of topics that add up to jawing over matters of life – and, even moreso, death. How high are the stakes for these folks? Oh, just wondering, and worrying, when mortality will come knocking to stake its claim on their fraught existence.

The banter ranges from nostalgic topics like family dysfunction, motherhood, friendship and the general ravages of aging, to darker musings about mental and emotional illness, bad parenting, and ungrateful progeny, to lamentations – on death by AIDS, by suicide, by drug overdose, by car crash, by you-name-it. Call their respective recitations a veritable litany of lost causes.

How is any of that humorous? Ah, leave it to a trouper like Ms. Meara to turn that trick, and she does so quite craftily. In this production, she is abetted by a strongly committed cast featuring the couples of Lou Sherman and Kate Gleeson as Phil and Renee Shredman; Dan Forman and Heather Firestone as Marty and Terry Guteman; Gary D. Simon and Anne Rodgers Pearl as Matthew and Emily Paine.

They each flesh out their roles admirably, bringing to the surface the distinctive personalities that give the story its compelling texture of conversation (and alcohol) as self-medicating therapy, with notable credit for the ensemble’s effective work due also to director Richard Troiano. He adds a nice touch by inserting between scenes thematically-relevant audio interstitials, such as a vintage Stiller and Meara skit and an even more vintage recording of Kurt Weill’s "September Song" from 1938 musical Knickerbocker Holiday, performed by Walter Huston (grandfather of Anjelica, father of legendary filmmaker John.)

If we’re playing along with my little game of figuring out who might be the real inspirations for these characters, Phil and Marty feel like a reasonable mashup of Jerry Stiller, combining droll humor with a chronic kvetchiness.

As for who might be the real Terry? At least one aspect of her behavior might suggest pioneering TV comedy writer Selma Diamond, a chain smoker who died of lung cancer at 64.

A character who proves both unknowable and fascinating is the maître d’, Raziel (Ruby Ellen Rocco). She speaks in a highly measured, rather Patrician elocution and moves with a gliding gentility that gives the endearing Ms. Rocco room to make a strong impression in a supporting role. Also in the cast as server Gallitsur is Floyd Gumble, who earns backstage kudos for his highly serviceable, fancy-restaurant set design.  

The jokiness of the proceedings early on takes a sobering turn later on when the Paines show up and a brutal reality quickly calcifies the mood when Irish Coffee-loving Emily comes unhinged in a vengefully performative mourning of their son, who perished from AIDS.

If there is a puzzling intrigue inherent in After-Play, in how it leaves one wondering where is Anne Meara taking us on this journey? it is doubtless the playwright’s intention (the play earned her an Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award).

She’s not interested in attempting any easy answers to how we can better negotiate this mortal coil, or why bad things happen to good people. Those elusive answers simply do not exist. Life’s mystery is what propels us, until our propeller peters out.

Dare this reviewer speculate that Anne Meara in After-Play is trying to tell us that life -- when all is said and done and undone -- is one big joke? OK, but are we the joke’s setup -- or the punchline? Maybe we’ll find an answer, after all, somewhere in the laughter life.

Other Credits…

Producer, Heather Firestone. Stage Manager, Emmy Schwartz and Nan Weiss. Sound Design, Richard Troiano and Mark Firestone (also Operations). Lighting Design, Richard Troiano. Lighting Operations, Aidan Campbell. Costume Coordinator, Lisa Lawrence. House Manager, Janis Levitt. Publicity, Jacqueline Anne Simon (also Poster Design and Lobby Display) and Melinda O’Brien. Program, Melinda O’Brien.