A House, and Family, Divided ‘City of Conversation’ Charts a Sea Change in Washington
Charles IsherwoodMay 5, 2014: Hester Ferris, the social lioness played by the marvelous Jan Maxwell in the terrific new play The City of Conversation, by Anthony Giardina, knows a fellow feline when she sees one. When the pert young woman who has arrived in Hester’s plush Georgetown living room asks innocuously if she can observe as Hester prepares for the power-player dinner party she is hosting that evening, Hester turns on her a glare both amused and assessing. In a tone that makes clear that she has done an instant X-ray and discerned an ambitious young operator beneath the benign exterior, Hester quips, “I think I saw that movie.” When this meets a blank stare, she clarifies: “The young faux-naïf making up to the aging star. It’s called All About Eve.” Although its setting is the theater of politics as opposed to Broadway, Mr. Giardina’s juicy play, which opened on Monday night at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater, shares some of that movie’s most appealing qualities. Smart, literate and funny — and directed with silken assurance by Doug Hughes — it charts the rise of the polarized politics of our day through the microcosm of one woman’s experience.
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