Jesse Eisenberg really needs to stop writing the same play. His Happy Talk explores the simmering rages just beneath the surface of an apparently placid household, but the Oscar-nominated actor-playwright has previously written and starred in three works—Asuncion, The Revisionist, and The Spoils—all of which deal with condescending Americans ruining the lives of good-natured non-Americans with smug presumptions of superior perceptions and intelligence. For Happy Talk, his first piece in which the lead is not a young, white male, he has constructed a sometimes-amusing but ultimately predictable comedy-drama.
The plot revolves around self-centered Lorraine (a delightfully over-the-top Susan Sarandon in a rare stage role), a community-theater diva with delusions of artistry, and her attempts to create a paper marriage for her live-in aide, Ljuba (the magnificent Marin Ireland) who cares for Lorraine’s bed-ridden, offstage mother and incapacitated husband Bill (perfectly understated Daniel Oreskes).
The title derives from a song from South Pacific, Lorraine’s current vehicle for the Jewish Community Center. She is miscast as Bloody Mary, and the tune refers to her penchant to cover up any unpleasantries with a forced peppy attitude. Ljuba, an illegal immigrant from Serbia, adopts Lorraine’s rose-colored outlook about eventually becoming a US citizen and reuniting with her daughter. Needless to say and true to Eisenberg’s previous works, Lorraine’s unrealistic viewpoint and overweening egotism eventually destroy Ljuba’s future.
The playwright does supply piercingly funny moments, precisely set up and staged by Scott Elliott, as when Lorraine engineers a fake romance between her gay co-star Ronnie (a very funny Nico Santos) and Ljuba. Oreskes’s eloquent silent reactions and Santos’s hilariously delivered quips, chock full of musical-comedy references, merge with Sarandon’s on-target portrayal of Lorraine’s oblivious drive for the spotlight and Ireland’s grounded depiction of the desperate but chipper Ljuba, to create comedy both touching and riotous.
But then Eisenberg pours on the pathos with an out-of-nowhere nocturnal visit from Lorraine’s nightmare of a daughter Jenny (Tedra Millan doing the best she can with a one-dimensional role). From this point on, Lorraine is unbelievably transformed into a destructive monster and the play loses its impact. Happy Talk has sequences of fun and insight but fails to sustain a truly credible situation and complex characters.
