Beneath the surface of the dark comedy Becky Shaw, now on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater, lurks an even darker reality. Written by Gina Gionfriddo, who also wrote the play Rapture, Blister, Burn, and whose TV work includes The Alienist, Becky Shaw premiered off-Broadway in 2008, and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2009. Almost twenty years later, the play resonates in ways the playwright could never have imagined. Or maybe she did. Either way, Becky Shaw is a blistering satire that anticipates the ascension of a character like “Master of the Universe” wannabe Max Garrett, played by Alden Ehrenreich, a TONY nominee. Susan Slater, Max’s (sort of) adoptive mother, in a biting performance by Linda Emond, gives Max a run for the money – literally. When the titular Becky Shaw arrives, the machinations and dark secrets of this (sort of) family explode. David Zinn’s clever scenic design frames these characters in rooms devoid of much color or personality. Dark apartments in Providence RI and monochromatic NY hotel rooms function as board rooms. They’re meant for negotiations, not conversation. Susan’s house in Richmond VA is pretty much all white. It looks comfortable, but harbors agreements that make everyone in this extended family complicit in their own dysfunction. In a quirky touch, set changes seem to bedevil the characters, who either frantically run on and off, or are swept up as their worlds, even their very private worlds, are unceremoniously exposed and wheeled away.
Where We Are Now
Becky Shaw, a TONY Nominee for Best Revival, anticipates our narcissistic 2026 reality. People like Max flourish, and social media has reduced the discourse to acerbic quips and name calling. The effect of the play, though, is nearly lost in Act One. Trip Cullman’s direction threatens to turn it into a sitcom. This may be the fault, too, of the playwright. The characters are too smart by half, and too quippy. While Gionfriddo clearly intends them to be representations of certain types who soared in the early 2000’s as much as real people, they occasionally teeter on caricature. Cullman does not help when he has his actors stand downstage and look out – adding unneeded punctuation points to their withering barbs.
Something Sinister Is Afoot
Cullman’s pace slows down considerably in Act Two, and the play unveils itself as a stinging, almost Gothic take on an American family. In the context, the Slaters, and their various hangers-on, have the engaging machinations of the Weston family in Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County. (2007) There is also the looming presence of two missing fathers. Their untimely exits, like that of the father in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, infect the Slaters and set in motion a series of events whose effects fester even decades later. As with more recent plays, like Stephen Karam’s The Humans (2014), and Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning (2019), there is something very sinister afoot in Becky Shaw. It is mostly Max.
The production swirls around Ehrenreich’s full-throttled performance. Max is a nearly unbearable character, whose acid bon-mots are his calling card. His hold on the family, and particularly on his (sort of) sister Suzanna, seems inexplicable. That Lauren Patten, in the role, can’t quite keep up with the finesse of Ehrenreich and Emond, does not help. Max manages the family’s dwindling funds, but wields a disproportionate amount of power. When Susan reveals secrets of Max and Suzanna’s childhood, Max, a “short-timer” who can’t stay in a relationship for longer than three months, is shown to be far more diabolical than he is charming. He meets his match in the quixotic Becky Shaw, whose own wiles, (or is it just naivete?) finally forces a reckoning. The break in Max reveals a (very) damaged man-child. Madeline Brewer’s eyes-wide-open Becky is just the antidote the play demands. Her dynamic performance ups the stakes in what becomes a dangerous game of cat and mouse between an oddly matched pair. Becky is referred to throughout the play as “Becky Shaw.” The nomenclature suggests Becky Sharp in Thackeray‘s novel Vanity Fair, an upwardly-moving conniver who inveigles her way through the Victorian moneyed class. Becky Shaw is an outsider, too. She stumbles into the Slater’s twisted world, finds her place, and wants to stay.
We Were Warned!
The characters, with the exception of Patrick Ball’s well-played, overly-conscientious and emotionally fastidious Andrew Porter, are all self-involved, and emotionally stunted. They are also very fun to watch. Becky Shaw is very funny, even if its comedy threatens at times to overwhelm its biting satire and piercing insights. The play is cautionary tale. Gionfriddo warned us in 2008 of what might happen if arrogance goes unchecked, and getting ahead becomes a flimsy excuse for complicity. At what cost? Gionfriddo knew that deceit and manipulation could come back to bite us. The Slaters, Max, and Becky Shaw deserve each other. We can’t say we weren’t warned.
Becky Shaw
Second Stage, Helen Hayes Theater
Limited Run thru June 14
Professor Kevin Confoy teaches theater at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels at Sarah Lawrence College
