Clowns, of All Sorts, Take New York

According to family lore, Eddie — the teenager at the center of “Indian Blood,” A.R. Gurney’s irresistible new memory play — is one-sixteenth Seneca Indian. As a result, the affluent young man vows, “I harbor a profound grudge against the customs of the white man.” What he means, of course, is that he harbors a grudge against his upstate New York environs and particularly against his parents, a quality that brands him not so much as having Seneca blood as it does having human blood.Just as Eddie (an engaging Charles Socarides) clearly draws sustenance from the family he longs to renounce, his prolific creator has once again confronted his past with an irresistible blend of affection and exasperation. Along with director Mark Lamos, Mr. Gurney — who has shifted his focus of late from the foibles of WASPdom to the foibles of Washington, including a new work due at the Flea Theatre this fall — casts a bemused and benevolent glance over his shoulder and reports back with one of his finest works.In some ways, Buffalo circa 1946 is a living Currier & Ives print, a snowy haven where children “muck around” in the “rumpus room” and live in fear of being branded “smart-alecks.” Eddie’s booster father, Harvey (Jack Gilpin), boasts that Buffalo is the 13th-largest city in America and has a fine symphony orchestra. But we learn from Harvey’s own father (the sublime John Mc-Martin) that it wasn’t that long ago that Buffalo was the sixth-largest city. And the city’s decline, not to mention a chill in Harvey’s marriage to Jane (Rebecca Luker, making a surprisingly fluid transition from her usual Broadway musical fare), shows few signs of reversing.In addition to the occasional bit of roughhousing with his sniveling cousin Lambert (Jeremy Blackman), Eddie’s ornery side emerges through minor acts of rebellion. A sarcastic remark here, a bit of classroom tomfoolery there — Eddie is essentially a good boy, as his smothering grandmother (Pamela Payton-Wright) insists, but it may dismay him to hear that.One manifestation of this class-clown tendency is a pair of drawings of Injun Joe and Glinda the Good Witch in flagrante delicto.This image — which conflates typical randy adolescence with Eddie’s personal moral grapplings and the notion of miscegenation that (he believes) condones his behavior — fuels much of the play’s drama, which culminates in a fateful Christmas dinner. (It is also an apt metaphor for young Mr. Gurney’s artistic ambitions: Eddie is more ashamed of the picture’s inexpertly drawn hands than he is of the subject matter.)The picture is the only actual prop onstage; Messrs. Gurney and Lamos keep the set bare except for a few stray chairs. (The period detail comes entirely from Ann Hould-Ward’s letter-perfect costumes.) This bare-bones approach paves the way for a little too much “bear with us, we’re in a play” fourth-wall-breaking shtick on Mr. Gurney’s part, and the resulting pantomimed action is not among Mr. Lamos’s most comfortable work. But it also shifts the focus to the uniformly strong performances.Mr. McMartin leads the way on this score with a beautifully nuanced turn as the scamp at the head of the family.Harvey may be firmly under his mother’s sway, but Eddie is drawn to his grandfather, whose success in the town has given him both an appreciation of its gifts and a clear view of its diminishing future.He is a canary in his own coal mine, a fate that makes him both a touching character and an enjoyably scandalous dinner companion.Mr. Gurney also illuminates the gentler frictions of family life, as when mother and son commiserate over the prospect of attending the holiday dinner:Eddie: I was planning to go to the movies Christmas night with Bucky Zeller.Jane: What movie?Eddie: ‘Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.’Jane: I almost wish I could go with you.Eddie: You can, Mom. If you pay and don’t sit near us.These somewhat cozy cadences can be found throughout “Indian Blood,” and Mr. Gurney’s decision to keep things on a light emotional keel ultimately prevents the play from delivering the seismic impact of some of its fellow coming-of-age dramas. Mr. Gurney spares Eddie the upheavals of, say,’Master Harold …and the Boys’ or “Caroline, or Change,”in which emotional maturation comes at the cost of betraying others.In essence, Mr. Gurney has written his “Buffalo Beach Memoirs”: Its layers of familial angst and enveloping nostalgia are similar to the ones that gave Neil Simon’s career such a satisfying third act in the 1980s.With the possible exception of his “Love Letters,” Mr. Gurney’s career has never reached Simon-level heights, so the upswing from a touching, accessible, occasionally blissful work like “Indian Blood” might not be as dramatic. But it is every bit as deserved, and the promise of someday seeing Mr. Gurney’s “Lost in Yonkers” or “Broadway Bound”is the sort of promise that keeps people coming to the theater again and again.***With its creaky floorboards and foppish ushers, the Spiegeltent — an Old World venue spending the summer at the former Fulton Fish Market space — conveys a mildly debauched beer garden vibe. And its main tenant, a risqué cabaret-circus called “Absinthe,” extends this seedy mood with a half-dozen beguiling acts, all performing inches from the audience on a stage the size of a backyard trampoline. (Everyone from Duncan Sheik to John “Lipsynka” Epperson to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to the hilarious Reverend Billy will also take the stage at Spiegeltent.)Most of the “Absinthe” material gives familiar circus fare a PG-13 tweak: stone-faced acrobats strip down to their skivvies, a dynamo named Miss Behave impales her own tongue with a long-stemmed rose. There is one detour into decidedly dodgier fare, however, as the amazing magician-stripper Ursula Martinez pulls her hanky out of very unlikely places.But Ms. Martinez ends the first act on a high that, unfortunately, doesn’t last. Singer Camille O’Sullivan’s delivered overamplified and undistinguished material throughout, and one “special guest” on opening night, a ponytailed blower of intricate soap bubbles, registered as glorified children’s party material. (The cube bubble was sort of neat, though.)Judging from the dropped jaws around me, David O’Mer’s bathtub-themed hybrid of Cirque du Soleil and Chippendale’s made quite a splash. And Nate Cooper executed a fantastic soft-shoe routine in roller skates — then juggled knives while bouncing on a pogo stick in platform heels. To quote the reigning New York gossip queen, Cindy Adams, whose presence in the front row made her a somewhat unenthusiastic accomplice in Mr. Cooper’s shenanigans: Only in New York, kids. Or apparently throughout Europe, too.“Indian Blood” until September 2 (59 E. 59th St., between Park and Madison avenues, 212-279-4200).“Absinthe” until October 1 (Pier 17, South Street Seaport, 212-279-4200).

Clowns, of All Sorts, Take New York

Clowns, of All Sorts, Take New York

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