Theater: New York City Center / 130 West 55th Street, New York, NY, 10019
Synopsis:
Judith has been divested of her assets and forced to leave her luxurious New York life after her husband’s Wall Street scam became headline news. When her daughter Becca and Becca’s filmmaker boyfriend pay Judith a visit to the one bedroom condo Judith now occupies in Pensacola, Florida, everyone’s motives are called into question. How will past and present circumstances inform how this family moves into the future?
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November 22, 2013: A gaping emotional sinkhole opens under the stylish boots of Becca, a struggling actress portrayed by a well-known one, Sarah Jessica Parker, in the new play “The Commons of Pensacola” by Amanda Peet — another actress, of course, here making a creditable debut as a playwright with this Manhattan Theater Club production.
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November 22, 2013: Sarah Jessica Parker is aces at light comedy, but she’s at her best when her characters are at their worst. Then the “Sex and the City” icon summons emotions that cut you to the bone. Late and briefly in The Commons of Pensacola, Parker does that, shaking things to life. Otherwise, this headline-highjacking drama is unfocused and symbol-larded — a storm approaches, a door won’t open, it’s Thanksgiving.
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November 22, 2013: A cheaply constructed, boxlike apartment with one great feature — a beautiful view from the balcony — is the setting for Amanda Peet’s first play, The Commons of Pensacola. It’s also a pretty good description of the play itself. The storytelling is as clunky and baldly functional as the set’s Home Depot fan and bifold closet doors, but the outlook — what Peet has in sight — is actually quite smart and worthy of attention.
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November 22, 2013: Amanda Peet makes a promising left turn into playwriting with this small-scale drama veined with caustic comedy, a work both topical and personal that succeeds on its own refreshingly modest terms. Like Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, its central figure is a woman in the Ruth Madoff mold, but Peet’s interest in her is less as a character study than as an avenue to explore the emotional fallout of public disgrace for those caught in the crossfire. More obliquely, The Commons of Pensacola reflects with insight and compassion on women at turning points where age and diminishing prospects can be confronting foes, whether you’re the wife of a financial fraudster or an actress.
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November 22, 2013: Western civilization may not be pining for a play about the wretched (and lightly disguised) family of imprisoned con man Bernie Madoff, but need it or not, actress-turned-scribe Amanda Peet has written just such a play in The Commons of Pensacola. While it doesn’t realize its ambitions, it’s not half bad in the hands of the super cast in MTC a.d. Lynne Meadow’s tightly helmed production. Blythe Danner lends WASP dignity to the bloodied and bowed stand-in for Ruth Madoff, and Sarah Jessica Parker tears into the role of her neurotic older daughter, who’s about to go off an emotional cliff.
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