Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Jordan Harrison’s LGBT-centric comedy LOG CABIN crams a lot it in, by why not?

• By drediman
• June 26, 2018
• No Comments

The company of Jordan Harrison’s “Log Cabin” at Playwrights Horizons.

Last night, Jordan Harrison’s Log Cabin opened Off-Broadway, just in time to coincide with New York Pride. Mr. Harrison has emerged as one of the vital voices in American playwriting. His previous plays – among them the Pulitzer Prize finalist Marjorie Prime (which was adapted into a film starring the great Lois Smith), this past season’s thought-provoking The Amateurs at the Vineyard Theatre, and the recently-revived Maple and Vine – all suggest a smart, wildly imaginative artist who has the ability to seemingly expand the stage to create fully-realized theatrical worlds that turn around only to reveal raw truths about our shared humanity. The great Caryl Churchill, one of our great living playwrights, has this ability; that’s a comparison that should be taken as extremely high praise.

There’s much to commend about the play and the production at Playwrights Horizons. Mr. Harrison’s play tells the intertwined stories of three LGBT couples – gay, lesbian, transgendered – trying to navigate jarring shifts in societal norms, particularly as it relates to identity, relationships, newfound rights, parenthood, and family (biological and the ones we create) over the course of this current decade. Admittedly, there’s a lot crammed into Mr. Harrison’s intermission-less 90-minute work; indeed, the play often registers like a messy collage of every imaginable current LGBT issue, at times to the detriment of dramatic cohesion and believability (aside from two very young, pre-lingual characters, this is the most “naturalistic” work of the playwright’s I’ve seen). But these are all issues many of will face in our lifetimes, so why be shy about the overwhelming prospect of living life as a queer in this day and age?

Luckily, director Pam MacKinnon’s polished, handsome (the impressive rotating upper-middle class set is by Allen Moyer) production is beautifully paced and shaped for maximum naturalism to the extent possible, as well as thoughtfully-acted. Her cast is excellent – comprised of Phillip James Brannon, Cindy Cheung, Jesse Tyler Ferguson (of “Modern Family” fame), Ian Harvie, Talene Monahon, and Dolly Wells – giving performances that attempt and mostly succeed in creating three-dimensional characters out of bundles of neuroses and unresolved themes. Even if Log Cabin doesn’t quite have the same breathtaking imagination of Mr. Harrison’s other plays, it’s an insightful, and often very funny, comedy for the here-and-now that deserves to be seen.

RECOMMENDED

LOG CABIN
Off-Broadway, Play
Playwrights Horizons
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through July 15