There’s no reason for stage actors to fear getting on in years. Sure, they have to cope with the indignities of old age in an increasingly youth-centered culture. But on the bright side, they can always, if they’re lucky, look forward to being cast in a revival of Morning’s at Seven that’s guaranteed to come along every couple of decades or so. The current Off-Broadway production at Theatre at St. Clement’s offers such an opportunity for seven performers of a certain age, and they make the most of it, with the audience being the lucky beneficiaries.
Paul Osborn’s play set in the early 1920’s, about the complicated family dynamics among four elderly sisters, was a flop when it premiered on Broadway in 1939 in a production directed by Joshua Logan. But a revelatory, Tony-winning revival in 1980, featuring a sterling cast including Nancy Marchand, Maureen O’Sullivan, Elizabeth Wilson, Teresa Wright, and Gary Merrill, restored its reputation. Another equally star-studded Broadway production in 2002 also became a hit.
Now it’s back, under more modest circumstances but once again featuring an ensemble to die for, made up of stage, screen and television veterans. It’s a pleasure to once again encounter the stalwart Cora (Lindsay Crouse) and her husband Thor (Dan Lauria), who share their home with Cora’s never-married sister Arry (Alley Mills, who took over the role in previews after Judith Ivey suffered an injury); Ida (Alma Cuervo) and her emotionally troubled husband Carl (John Rubinstein), who live next door; and Esther (Patty McCormack), who lives several blocks away with her husband David (Tony Roberts) because of his snooty disdain for her siblings and their husbands.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The play’s plot is set in motion when Ida and Carl’s 40-year-old son Homer (Jonathan Spivey) brings his girlfriend Myrtle (Keri Safran) home to meet his parents for the first time, despite the fact that they’ve been seeing each other for years and are now engaged. Not long afterward, his father, who has a discomfiting habit of suffering “spells” signified by his mournfully leaning his head against a tree, disappears. This precipitates a crisis when Homer suddenly abandons his marital plans in favor of taking care of his mother, abandoning the house that his father built for him to live in with his future bride. Cora, desperate to finally live alone with her husband, seizes the opportunity and persuades Ida to rent it to her with a 20-year lease. A frightened Arry subsequently threatens to reveal a long-buried secret involving her and Thor.
Despite its bucolic small-town setting and old-fashioned narrative style, the play proves a bracingly dark comedy that explores the foibles of human behavior and the complexity of sibling and marital relationships. The abnormal closeness of Homer and his mother becomes signified in a poignant yet hilarious moment when she bursts into tears upon learning that his girlfriend has recently bought him some underwear. When David declares that he’ll now be living in a different floor of their house after Esther defied his orders not to spend time with her sisters, she’s initially upset but soon warms to the idea, reveling in her newfound freedom.
Such moments, big and small but mainly small, are beautifully realized in the staging by Dan Wackerman which never pushes too hard for either laughs or pathos but succeeds in producing both. The estimable ensemble works together like a well-oiled machine, with nary a weak link. Special praise must be afforded, however, to McCormack, who will forever be known as “The Bad Seed” but here, looking absolutely beautiful, delivers a performance of elegant comic precision. Spivey and Safran more than keep up with their elders, with the latter amusingly reminiscent of Julie Hagerty, who played the same role in the last Broadway revival. And it’s a special treat to experience the reunion of Lauria and Mills, who played the parents in the classic sitcom The Wonder Years, with the latter deserving extra points for learning her role in a record amount of time (at a late preview, she was still on book for merely one scene).
This sterling revival of the witty and wise Morning’s at Seven serves as a charming reminder that great things sometimes come in old packages.
Mornings at Seven opened November 15, 2021, at the Theatre at St. Clement’s and runs through December 5. Tickets and information: morningsat7.com
