John Guare’s 1990 play, which he based on the real-life scam of a man who posed as the son of Sidney Poitier and managed to worm his way into an elitist circle of New York society, is back in a splendidly acted and handsome production (stunningly designed by Mark Wendland) directed by Trip Cullman. Both dark in its perspective and sparkling with wit and social insight, Six Degrees of Separation is about a cluster of surprisingly gullible, egregiously superficial, and also very wealthy people who unwittingly allow themselves to be victimized by their collectively subconscious desire to effect change. This, as well as add purpose and meaning to their already prosperous but decidedly self-serving lives. If Guare’s theme is let the buyer beware, the characters he has created to convey his realistic fable are dramatized with brutal frankness as well as layered with various degrees of sophistication. What is gratifying to see is how the initial gripping power of the play, whose duration is only 90 minutes, is maintained to the end by director Cullman who seems to have been able to further enhance (Jerry Zaks directed the original) the playwright’s vision, as least for me in this second experience with it. Even the play’s somewhat disappointing, strangely fragmented denouement and vague dissolve don’t hinder our enjoyment, particularly those moments of surprise and shock that are well calculated to keep us in suspense. With obvious relish, the cast is extracting every ounce of innuendo out of the odd, sordid, tragic and even perverse doings that keep the plot in motion. We can easily forgive the many implausible loopholes as well as the purposefully graphic depiction of homosexual activity. Allison Janney is terrifically funny and sad as Ouisa (role originally played by Stockard Channing) the wife whose spellbound relationship with an unscrupulous young black man presumably leads her to some new plane of cathartic self-awareness. John Benjamin Hickey is also superb as Flan, the wheeling dealing art-dealer husband. In probably the play’s most complexly considered character, a splendid Corey Hawkins disarmingly conveys the corrupted charms of the reckless gay intruder. A very fine supporting cast gives its all to characters caught up in a series of intrigues and deceptions that will eventually lead them from social isolation to universal connection. The play uses a dazzling premise to lead us from one unexpected threshold to another before dropping us into an abyss filled with uncertainties and regrets.
