AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
, the
stock market
A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange, as ...
and
insider trading
Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information ...
scandals,
homelessness
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are:
* living on the streets, also kn ...
, and urban malaise.
Plot
In the first act, very successful but disenchanted architect Stephen Wheeler is lunching with his best friend from their days at
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
, rising
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
gay artist Drew Paley, in a trendy restaurant on the
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. Seated at the adjoining table are
Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...
investment counselor Phoebe Kidde and her television producer brother Peter, who has just revealed he has AIDS to her. When boisterous homeless woman May Logan enters the restaurant and creates a scene, the four diners and their frazzled waitress Ellen find themselves thrown together, and they eventually strike up an unlikely alliance.
In the second act, six months have elapsed, and the
sextet
A sextet (or hexad) is a formation containing exactly six members. The former term is commonly associated with vocal ensembles (e.g. The King's Singers, Affabre Concinui) or musical instrument groups, but can be applied to any situation where six ...
are spending the weekend at Stephen's summer house in The Hamptons. Stephen and Phoebe find they share a mutual attraction, while Peter, unprepared to discuss his recent diagnosis, is trying to discourage Drew's amorous advances. Representing the lower class are Ellen and May, whose presence forces everyone to reexamine their lives and reevaluate their priorities.
Productions
The play's premiere production was at the
Seattle Repertory Theatre
Seattle Repertory Theatre (familiarly known as "The Rep") is a major regional theatre located in Seattle, Washington, at the Seattle Center. It is a member of Theatre Puget SoundMichael Engler, the cast included Harry Groener as Stephen, Tom Hulce as Drew,
Valerie Mahaffey
Valerie Mahaffey (born June 16, 1953) is an American character actress and producer. She began her career starring in the NBC daytime soap opera '' The Doctors'' (1979–81), for which in 1980 she was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outst ...
as Phoebe,
Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris (born November 6, 1960) is an American actor, singer, and guitarist. He has performed in many stage musicals and plays, including several Stephen Sondheim musicals: ''Assassins'', ''Sweeney Todd'', '' Road Show'', and '' Passio ...
as Peter,
Barbara Garrick
Barbara Garrick is an American actress. Garrick has appeared on stage, television and in film.
Life and career
Garrick was born in Los Angeles, California. A graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama, she has several stage credits, including ' ...
as Ellen, and Marjorie Nelson as May.
The
Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) is a theatre company located in New York City, affiliated with the League of Resident Theatres. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has gr ...
presented the play at the
Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
New York City Center, opening on October 27, 1988, and closing on December 4, 1988. Again directed by Michael Engler, the cast included Dylan Baker as Stephen,
Peter Frechette
Peter Frechette ( ; born October 3, 1956) is an American actor. He is a stage actor with two Tony Award nominations for ''Eastern Standard'' and ''Our Country's Good'', and frequently stars in the plays of Richard Greenberg. He is well known on T ...
as Drew,
Patricia Clarkson
Patricia Davies Clarkson (born December 29, 1959) is an American actress. She has starred in numerous leading and supporting roles in a variety of films ranging from independent film features to major film studio productions. Her accolades incl ...
as Phoebe,
Kevin Conroy
Kevin Conroy (November 30, 1955 – November 10, 2022) was an American actor. He appeared in a variety of stage performances, television series, and television films, but earned worldwide fame for his voice portrayal of the DC Comics superhero ...
as Peter,
Barbara Garrick
Barbara Garrick is an American actress. Garrick has appeared on stage, television and in film.
Life and career
Garrick was born in Los Angeles, California. A graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama, she has several stage credits, including ' ...
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play
The Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actors for quality supporting roles in a Broadway play. Honors i ...
.
''Eastern Standard'' was the first of Greenberg's plays to run on Broadway. The ''New York Times'' noted that the play "was ensconsed on Broadway... after successful engagements at the Seattle Repertory and Manhattan Theatre Club." The play had six sold-out weeks off-Broadway.
Critical reception
In his review in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', Frank Rich said the playwright "captures the romantic sophistication of the most sublime comedies ever made in this country: those produced by Hollywood from the middle of the Depression until the waning days of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Mr. Greenberg's characters have youth, brains, money and classy professions. Their last names . . . are redolent of
Philip Barry
Philip Jerome Quinn Barry (June 18, 1896 – December 3, 1949) was an American dramatist best known for his plays ''Holiday (play), Holiday'' (1928) and ''The Philadelphia Story (play), The Philadelphia Story'' (1939), which were both made into ...
's
Park Avenue
Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...
; their fresh good looks and bubbly voices recall
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Her career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned over 60 years. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited perso ...
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard (born Jane Alice Peters; October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress, particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in screwball comedies. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard 2 ...
, the heiress who adopts a tramp in ''
My Man Godfrey
''My Man Godfrey'' is a 1936 American screwball comedy film directed by Gregory La Cava and starring William Powell and Carole Lombard, who had been briefly married years before appearing together in the film. The screenplay for ''My Man Godfre ...
,'' or Joel McCrea, the Hollywood director who goes underground as a hobo in '' Sullivan's Travels'', they are driven by conscience to see how the other half lives . . . . If Mr. Greenberg's only achievement were to re-create the joy of
screwball comedies
Screwball comedy is a subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s, that satirizes the traditional love story. It has secondary characterist ...
, from their elegant structure to their endlessly quotable dialogue, ''Eastern Standard'' would be merely dazzling good fun. But what gives this play its unexpected weight and subversive punch is its author's ability to fold the traumas of his own time into vintage comedy without sacrificing the integrity of either his troubling content or his effervescent theatrical form . . . For anyone who has been waiting for a play that tells what it is like to be more or less middle-class, more or less young and more or less well-intentioned in a frightening city at this moment in this time zone, ''Eastern Standard'' at long last is it."
Michael Kuchwara
Michael Charlies Kuchwara (February 28, 1947 – May 22, 2010) was an American theater critic, columnist and journalist. Kuchwara worked as both a critic and journalist for the ''Associated Press'' for more than from 1984 until 2010, writing pi ...
, in his review for the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
, wrote: "Alternately compassionate and caustic, funny and sad, ''Eastern Standard'' marks the arrival of a major playwrighting talent who has been percolating on the theater scene for several years....With ''Eastern Standard,'' the playwright tackles bigger, more ambitious themes. He mixes his materialistic and upwardly mobile characters with such up-to-the-minute social concerns as the homeless and AIDS. It makes for an intriguing theatrical confrontation as his complaisant people face some unpleasant aspects of their society as well as their own social conventions."Kuchwara, Michael "'Eastern Standard,' A Play by Richard Greenberg, Opens Off-Broadway" apnewsarchive.com, October 27, 1988