By Harry Forbes
Hayley Mills provides the principal spark in Isobel Mahon's pleasant if unremarkable domestic Irish comedy/drama. She plays Carmel, a domineering, though not altogether horrid, mother visiting her daughter Mollie May (Gina Costigan) who’s been recently released from a psychiatric ward and now hosting a modest party to show off her new kitchen extension in her suburban Dublin home (sleekly attractive set by Jeff Ridenour).
The guests include cynical sister Maeve (Brenda Meaney) and gossipy neighbor Chloe (Allison Jean White), the latter invited by status-conscious Carmel without her daughters’ knowledge. In the second act, they are joined by germaphobe tomboy Bernie (Klea Blackhurst providing some lively moments). The lady, we learn, was one of Mollie May’s fellow patients in the home. (She’s both manic-depressive and compulsive-obsessive.)
Maeve is divorced, and we never see Mollie May’s husband Alan or their two children. Alan has apparently been absent during Mollie May’s recent travails, and Carmel is kept in the dark about why, but as is eventually revealed, he has, in fact, left home.
A first act flood and a second act catfight give offer the cast some opportunity for physical comedy, and the second act opens with the party in full swing and the ladies dancing in a conga line around the stage to a disco beat, a briefly fun moment that leavens the increasingly serious proceedings, not dissimilar to the impromptu dance occurring in Lucy Kirkwood’s post-apocalyptic “The Children” at Manhattan Theatre Club.
Isobel Mahon’s play is at best innocuously diverting rather than side-splittingly funny, and the whole situation feels more than a little contrived. When the play aims for poignancy, as for instance in Mollie May’s second act accounting of her breakdown, which Costigan delivers superbly with genuine gravity, the shift in tone is rather jarring.
Platitudinous busybody Chloe’s prying into the family’s affairs is particularly unconvincing. And there’s a late play revelation which you’ll probably have long since guessed anyway. Director Amanda Bearse -- who played Marcy D’Arcy on “Married with Children” -- puts her good cast through the paces capably enough, though there’s a sitcom feel to the whole enterprise.
The ladies make a cosy ensemble all in all, but the real treat is Mills, whom we’ve seen far too infrequently here in New York. She nails the domineering, constantly undermining parts of her role, while still retaining her charm. She looks great (nicely outfitted by Lara De Bruijn), demonstrates her stage savviness, and though she affects an Irish brogue here, every so often you catch the voice of the delightful youngster we all so fondly recall from the Disney films.
There were some halftime walkouts -- “Just a bunch of women talking shite,” one man was heard to comment -- but the second act passed enjoyably enough, and earned decent applause.
(City Center Stage II, 131 West 55th Street; Partyfaceplay.com or 212-581-1212; through April 8)
Photo: Hayley Mills and Gina Costigan in Party Face (© Jeremy Daniel) Print this post
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