The director of Everything’s Fine, actor John Lithgow, describes it as “a high-wire act of a play.” It’s an apt representation of the autobiographical piece written and performed by Douglas McGrath being given its world premiere at Off-Broadway’s DR2 Theatre. The only thing Lithgow left out is that McGrath could have used a net, since he falls off that high wire frequently in this entertaining but ultimately troubling evening.
To talk coherently about the solo piece revolving around McGrath’s memories of his childhood in Midland, Texas, one has to reveal an important plot point, only coyly referred to in the publicity materials as his remembrances of “an eighth-grade teacher who would change his life in the most unexpected way.” It sounds like a blurb for a holiday-themed Hallmark movie, but it’s more than a little misleading. So, spoiler alert, if you don’t want to know what the play is really about it, it would be advisable to stop reading now.
McGrath has extensive and eclectic experience as an actor, writer, and filmmaker, his credits including co-writing the screenplay for Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway (for which he received an Oscar nomination), the book of the Broadway musical Beautiful: The Carole King Story, and writing and directing such films as Emma, Nicholas Nickleby, Company Man and Infamous. Fashionably lean and exuding the preppie aura of someone who attended both the Choate School and Princeton University, he projects an appealing low-key charm and engaging wit.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
In the early part of the evening, he lightheartedly talks about his happy childhood in Midland, highlighted by such episodes as racing tumbleweeds home from school on his bike. He speaks about his parents with unabashed affection, describing his one-eyed father’s propensity for losing his artificial eye and his mother’s early years in New York City working at Harper’s Bazaar where she struck up a friendship with a young Andy Warhol. (The future pop artist once gave her a drawing of Greta Garbo, which McGrath proudly informs us he still has framed in his house. So he’s clearly not doing this show for monetary reasons.)
It’s when he gets to an account of his relationship with a new homeroom teacher that the show takes a darker tone, thematically if not tonally. McGrath, fourteen at the time, found himself receiving much attention from the female teacher, Mrs. Malenkov, newly arrived in town and 47 years old. It seemed innocent enough at first, with her asking him to spend time with her in class after the school day ended. But it’s after she begins inviting him to her house with the offer of a cup of homemade hot chocolate that her emotional neediness begins to rattle her confused young student. She also begins leaving daily notes in his locker that grow rapidly in emotional intensity.
Yes, this is a play about a teenage boy being groomed by a clearly emotionally disturbed adult in a position of power. But McGrath, bizarrely, mostly plays the scenario for laughs, with plenty of droll one-liners revolving around his youthful naivete and increasing panic, the latter partially leavened by the precocious witticisms of Eddie, his best friend at the time. Much of this material proves undeniably amusing, delivered in mostly deadpan fashion by McGrath with keen comic timing. But much like the teenage McGrath felt at the time, the longer it goes on the more uncomfortable it gets.
It’s an intriguing choice to relate the disturbing tale in such lighthearted fashion, but it doesn’t pay off. And the polished aspects of Lithgow’s staging only accentuate the disconnect between the content and style. McGrath’s smoothly unruffled delivery, only occasionally marked by emotion when he’s talking about his parents, gives the presentation the polished feel of an overly rehearsed TED Talk. And the musical selections occasionally punctuating the proceedings prove too cutesy by far, from Rosemary Clooney’s “Come On-a My House” when the teacher invites him to her home to Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” when she unravels emotionally after he tries to keep a distance. (We can only be grateful that the relationship didn’t actually turn sexual, since we would no doubt have been treated to Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.”)
At the piece’s conclusion, the writer/performer tells us that he’s forgiven Mrs. Malenkov for her transgressions, displaying a generosity of spirit that nonetheless fails to fully grapple with the ramifications of her aberrant behavior. Judging by the show, the events don’t seem to have done him any lasting harm, and have even provided the material for this latest theatrical excursion. But was this an isolated incident, or did she go on to even more harmful actions? That McGrath doesn’t seem to really care proves the most unnerving aspect of this ironically titled show.
Everything’s Fine opened October 13, 2022, at the DR2 Theatre and closed November 3. Tickets and information: everythingsfineplay.org
