(THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE is now a book--two books, in fact. No, make that three books! The first covers the 2012-2013 season, when, at the age of 72, I began reviewing plays. It contains full reviews and shorter comments on 150 shows, as well as a brief memoir on how I got into this critical mess. The 2013-2014 season follows, with 300 substantial reviews, so many it had to be published in two volumes (May to November; December to April). Both are available at affordable prices (paperback and Kindle) at Amazon.com. Christmas is coming so why not consider them as gifts for your theatreloving friends and family? Click here for more information.)
“Sex and the
Sexagenarian”
The Merriam-Webster
definition of “dramedy” is “a comedy . . . having dramatic moments,” which well defines Fern Hill,
Michael Tucker’s superficially titillating but nonetheless enjoyable concoction
about sexual perturbations among a group of still randy geriatrics. It’s now
playing at 59E59 after premiering last year at the New Jersey Repertory Company
with a slightly different cast.
 |
| Mark Linn-Baker, Jill Eikenberry. All photos: Carol Rosegg. |
Not that Fern
Hill’s characters are all that universal, unique, or unusual. Tucker, an
actor many will remember from TV’s “L.A. Law,” has imagined an artsy, but not
artsy fartsy, gang of comrades who get together regularly at Fern Hill, the country
house of Sunny (Jill Eikenberry, also of “L.A. Law” and Tucker’s real-life
wife) and Jer (Mark Blum). She’s a painter unsure of her abilities; he’s a 70-year-old
professor and writer of philosophically bleak nonfiction.
 |
| Ellen Parker, Jill Eikenberry. |
Darla (Ellen Parker)
is a photographer who, it appears, also teaches at Jer’s college and is successful
enough to be showing her work in Vienna and Prague. Like the other women, her
age is not mentioned but she’s somewhat younger than her husband, Vincent (John
Glover), a well-reputed painter, nearing 80, who has hip replacement surgery during
the play.
 |
| John Glover, Ellen Parker. |
Rounding out the cast
are Michiko (Jodi Long), an art professor—it would seem—at the same college, and
Billy, a longhaired rock musician. He’s turning 60 when the play begins, his once
popular band, Olly Golly, is in decline, and the couple are having financial
problems.
 |
| Jodi Long, Mark Linn-Baker, Ellen Parker, John Glover. |
The couples are gathered
for Billy’s birthday (and Jer’s upcoming one) in Fern Hill’s upscale kitchen/dining
room (including an old-fashioned fridge side by side with a new one), designed
with live-in readiness by Jessica Parks. Suitably costumed by Patricia
Doherty, the aging, cultured, and verbally acute friends banter, drink, smoke
weed (offstage), and, as typical in such comedies, vie to be the wittiest and
most charming—not that the effort doesn’t show. Highlighting act one is a friendly
dispute between Billy and Jer over who makes the best clam sauce, culminating in
Billy offering a glowing, aria-like exhibition of mouthwatering, culinary grandiloquence.
 |
| Mark Blum, Jill Eikenberry. |
But, apart from our
observing the interplay of sociable relations and rivalries, not much happens
until, as the end of act one approaches, the characters begin to discuss the feasibility
of living at Fern Hill as a commune, where they can share their sunset years,
caring for one another and sharing the burdens certain to come their way. All
are okay with the idea except for Jer.
 |
| Jill Eikenberry, Mark Linn-Baker. |
Act two might be
expected to take the communal idea further but it gets sidetracked by the
subject of one friend’s adultery, the adulterer placing the blame on perceived
intimacy problems with their spouse. This, with the threat it raises regarding
the group’s cohesiveness, inspires an intervention. Designed to bring the
couple back together by having everyone openly discusses their sex lives, it has
an innate interest for us eavesdroppers, even though not everyone is thrilled
to be frankly talking about such matters.
 |
| Mark Linn-Baker, John Glover, Mark Blum, Jill Eikenberry, Jodi Long, Ellen Parker. |
The fact that all these
geezers (even the months-from-being-an-octogenarian Vincent) are intensely
active bedpartners raises more questions than it answers, and the confessions,
relatively open as they are, tend to be more allusively sedate than pornographically
detailed. Intrinsically intriguing as they may be, they don’t add anything new
to the issue of marital betrayal that other plays haven’t explored, like, for
example, the current revival of Pinter’s Betrayal. The pleasures
offered us lie more in the carefully limned performances than in the lessons purveyed
about ego and self-awareness.
 |
| Mark Linn-Baker, Mark Blum, Jodi Long, Jill Eikenberry, Ellen Parker, John Glover. |
Nadia Tass does a
lovely job with a cast of well-known, top-notch actors. The way she opens act
two, described in the script merely as “Vincent is lying on the open recliner,
which has been made up with sheets and a blanket,” is priceless. For it, she
creates a mostly pantomimic scene, with improvised chatter, revealing how
Vincent got there the night before. Intended to show the depth of the love these
characters have for one another, it involves Jer helping Vincent, suffering the
pain of his hip operation, settle ever so gently into the recliner, while Ben Webster’s
jazzy sax rendition of “Tenderly” covers the action.
 |
| John Glover, Mark Linn-Baker, Mark Blum, Jill Eikenberry, Jodi Long. |
 |
| John Glover, Mark Linn-Baker, Ellen Parker, Jodi Long, Jill Eikenberry, Mark Blum. |
Fern Hill treats the potentially thought-provoking
topics of senior sex and communal living for old friends in comfortable, not particularly
challenging ways, and it would benefit from more laughs than it presently
provides. But its two hours go down easily, its production quality never
falters, and, if you’re of a certain age, you may even give some thought to where
you stand (if you still can) on the issues it addresses.
59E59 Theaters/Theater A
59 E. 59th St., NYC
Through October 20
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