If Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? taught us anything, it’s that party games and married couples are a dangerous combination—especially when alcohol is added to the mix. The latest theatrical proof of this tenet comes courtesy of Shit. Meet. Fan., playwright Robert O’Hara’s 105-minute send-up of moneyed white privilege, toxic bro-havior, and the illusion of privacy.
Based on Paolo Genovese’s 2016 Italian film Perfect Strangers (Perfetti Sconosciuti)—which has been remade on screen well over two dozen times, in various languages and countries—O’Hara’s paint-by-numbers version, which just opened at MCC Theater, brings us into a luxury Dumbo high-rise for a couples’ cocktail party. (Clint Ramos designed the drool-worthy set, which includes a slick bar, gorgeous terrace, massive kitchen island, and view of the Brooklyn bridge.) Hosts Eve (Tony winner Jane Krakowski), a therapist, and Rodger (Tony winner Neil Patrick Harris), a plastic surgeon, are hurriedly lining up glasses and arranging nibbles while arguing about their teenage daughter, Sam (Genevieve Hannelius), and the implications of a giant box of condoms. Their guests will be newlyweds Hannah (film and TV star Constance Wu, who recently made her off-Broadway debut in Little Shop of Horrors) and Frank (Michael Oberholtzer, a Tony nominee for the Take Me Out revival); longtime marrieds Claire (Will & Grace star Debra Messing) and Brett (Deadwood and The Mindy Project’s Garret Dillahunt); and Logan (Tramell Tillman of the Apple TV+ series Severance), who’s supposedly bringing his new girlfriend, Deanna (“so she’s white,” Eve concludes, upon hearing her name).
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
Things take a turn pretty quickly when the group is chatting about a soon-to-be-divorced pal whose wife caught him cheating thanks to his text messages. A rookie mistake, agree the men: “You’ve gotta be more careful with your texts,” says Frank. Claire is gobsmacked: “More careful with his texts or more careful with his married cock!?” But consider how many secrets are hiding in your phones, adds Eve. “It’s like the flight recorder of our lives. The black box everyone looks through when something crashes and burns.” So she suggests a game. Everyone puts their phones on the coffee table, and the group gets to read all their texts for the next hour; phone calls go on speaker. All the attendees agree pretty quickly—surprising, considering almost everyone has something shameful to hide.
O’Hara (who also directs) is a playwright whose brand is built on putting viewers on edge; he often talks about “theater of choke,” and creating discomfort for the audience. Consider his 1996 breakthrough Insurrection: Holding History, a time-traveling twist on the Nat Turner slave rebellion; 2014’s sketch comedy–style Bootycandy, a stereotype-bashing coming-of-age story about a gay black man; 2015’s Barbecue, which places two nearly identical substance-abusing, emotionally unstable families—one white, one black—in a bucolic outdoor setting and lets them attack each other like hungry wolves (an O’Hara-directed film version, set to star Colman Domingo, was recently announced); and 2017’s eerily prescient Mankind, a triumph-of-the-patriarchy play that imagines a world without women, where men are the ones who get pregnant and abortion is illegal. If you’re at an O’Hara play—even one he didn’t write, but only directed (Slave Play, for example)—prepare to be unnerved.
The characters in Shit. Meet. Fan., however, are more annoying than unnerving. And, unfortunately, predictable. (Though the actors, especially Tillman and Messing, do their darnedest to create a bit of mystery.) As for the twist at the end—which is taken from the Genovese movie, and which we won’t reveal here—it feels like an easy way out. Something, say, a long-running TV show might do.
Shit. Meet. Fan. opened Nov. 18, 2024, at MCC Theater and runs through Dec. 15. Tickets and information: mcctheater.org
