House of Blue Leaves

It isn't everyday the Pope visits New York.  And in 1965, when Pope Paul came to speak to the UN and, "end the war in Viet Nam," it was a very exciting time in the Shaughnessy home in Sunnyside, Queens as portrayed in "House of Blue Leaves," now in revival at The Walter Kerr Theater.

Artie Shaughnessey, zookeeper by day, songwriter by night, is having an open affair with his downstairs neighbor Bunny.  You can't really blame him.  His wife, Ronnie...aka Bananas...isn't all there.  Bunny is constantly pestering him to check Bananas into the nearest looney boon, and run off together to Hollywood, where Artie's childhood best friend Billy is a big-time Director.  This all unfolds between 5 and 6AM the day the Pope is flying into Idlewild.

By the time Pope does his Sunnyside drive by, Artie's grown son has returned home, AWOL from the army, a gaggle of nuns is perched in his living room, Billy's girlfriend has dropped by and lost the transistors to her hearing aid, and a plot to kill the Pontiff has gone awry.

Reality?  Theater of the absurd?  Period piece?  All of the above, and as directed by David Cromer, this creaky revival by John Guare originally staged in 1986, has a tired, dated feeling.  Its only the superb performances of Ben Stiller, Edie Falco and Jennifer Jason Leigh that saves this mediocre play from obscurity.

Ben Stiller played the son in the original production, and one gets the feeling he called in all his celebrity buddies to have some fun on Broadway.  With Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, and Mary Beth Hurt thrown into the affair in small roles, the play gets more star power than the weak writing deserves.  Act I is all explanatory and the timing seems off.  A running gag about Bunny's previous jobs gets tired really fast, and Bananas' psychological problems seem cliched.  It would be comical, if not for the stunning performance of Edie Falco.

The play picks up steam, pace and timing in Act II, and there are some great surprising plot twists, but this is never Guare at his best.  With the exception of Artie, the characters aren't real enough for you to care about, and the plot isn't absurd enough not to take literally.

Ben Stiller is formidable as Artie.  His layered performance as the loser who knows deep down he's never going to be anything more than he is, the conflict he feels over committing Bunny, the exhilaration he experiences when Bunny props him up, makes this play worth seeing.  Edie Falco is haunting as Bananas, with every movement and nuance deliberate and precise.  Any drama in the piece comes from her fear of being incarcerated, but her knowing that's probably where she belongs.  Jennifer Jason Leigh, making her Broadway debut, puts on a great Queens accent and energetically does her best with a cliched role.

The title refers to a tree Artie saw outside the hospital where he plans on committing Bananas.  It was a tree full of blue leaves, and when he stood under it, the blue leaves all blew away together in a burst of wind.  They were actually birds, migrating to places unknown.  There is poetry in this imagery, and glimpses of genius in this play.  If only it could match the acting talent on display.