It won't take savvy theater audiences or more specifically those familiar with the plays by Anton Chekhov (notably Uncle Vanya and The Seagull) to recognize the playful conceit deployed by Donald Margulies in his play set in a country home in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Here, a family of self-centered theater folk feud, fret, and fuss about their careers while giving equal time to their complicated personal lives. It's glib to be sure, with its unsubtle Chekhovian references and its more unsubtle characters played for all they are worth by actors who know how to land a line.
Director Daniel Sullivan has taken this Manhattan Theatre Club production of The Country House as seriously as have the cast who make their numerable entrances and exits with suitable affectation and appropriate aplomb in the handsomely appointed home designed by John Lee Beatty.
It really isn't important to know who is cheating on whom, whose career is on the wane, or whose lives are being wasted, only that Blythe Danner commands center stage as a fading stage and screen star while the others take their cue, say their lines, and orbit around her with an understandable sense of frustration.
Some may enjoy playing the Chekhov-game of naming each of the character's counterpart, while others will grow weary as they also laugh at the prevailing pettiness and the phony poignancy that abounds in this country house.
