In his new dramedy, The Assembled Parties, premiering on Broadway at MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theater, Richard Greenberg bites off more than we can chew. The prolific and undeniably gifted playwright (who snagged a well-deserved Tony for 2003’s Take Me Out), obviously loves both the interconnections between characters and the beauty of a well-chosen word. Too bad that in The Assembled Parties,the characters Greenberg connects are either only passably interesting or insufficiently developed, and the results of the author’s logophilia are a lot of $2 words coming out the mouths of Upper West Side New Yorkers who are intelligent enough to use them but still don’t sound convincing doing so.
The plot has to do with a Jewish family celebrating Christmas (something that’s never really explained) and includes a mother who sees everything through rose-colored glasses, her mother, who married a kind of jerk with unspecified ties to the underworld, a promising son who’s not sure what promise he’s meant to fulfill, and teenage granddaughter who’s just a bit off. Add to this the son’s college buddy who seems to have yearnings for his pal’s girlfriend (or is it his pal?), and you have the makings of a dysfunctional family comedy with Jewish jokes, mild plot surprises and the occasional touching moment – i.e., the usual Broadway meal. But this long and bumpy play never coalesces into something we care about – not even when the second act visits the same people 20 years later, so we can play the moderately engaging game of, “okay, who died, how old is that one, and what ever happened to . . .?“.
Somewhere in all this, Jessica Hecht gives an engaging performance as the mom. Delivering florid compliments with a smile yet a halting voice, she conveys the push-pull of a woman who knows she’s often spouting b.s. but usually prefers beauty to the truth. Judith Light also has notable moments as the grandmother, including a terrific bit of storytelling that gives a much-needed goose to the second act. Jeremy Shamos brings his usual but welcome, nebbishy likableness to the role of the son’s best friend, Jeff. In fact, one of the play’s few truly gripping moments comes when his goodheartedness compels him to use blackmail.
Santo Loquasto’s set design of a sprawling Manhattan apartment (is there such a thing?) admittedly makes us want to visit the place but, alas, it’s at the expense of spending two-and-a-half hours with the parties there assembled.
