Winter, 1985. 75-year-old Meryl ditches ice-cold Milwaukee for sunny Los Angeles, hell-bent on becoming a movie star. She’s got big dreams, a little money, and a whole lot of nerve. But will the world ever know her for who she really is? Starring two-time Academy Award® winner Dianne Wiest as Meryl, and directed by Tony Award® -winning director Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown; Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812), John J. Caswell, Jr.’s (Wet Brain; Vineyard’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award) Scene Partners is a wildly theatrical, hilarious and genre-twisting gallop through the experience of a woman reborn.
This playwright is big on concept. Earlier this year, John J. Caswell Jr. gave us a play, “Wet Brain,” that took us inside the fevered mind of an alcoholic. In his new play, “Scene Partners,” a 75-year-old widow from the Midwest takes off for Hollywood to become a movie star even before her dead (and very hateful) husband has been buried. The big concept is her name, Meryl Kowalski.
Perhaps making sense of it all would be easier if the lead’s performance felt more grounded. Wiest is a legend, and there are glimmers of what makes her such, moments where the desperation to find a stable self amid the chaos feels real. But too often, she exhibits no strong persona for Scene Partners to destabilize. Tony Award-winning director Rachel Chavkin similarly cannot find an aesthetic throughline for the show, even with an overly generous helping of David Bengali’s projections.
| 2023 | Off-Broadway |
Vineyard Theatre Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
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