Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Sharr White’s THE TRUE, led by a masterful Edie Falco, is scintillating theater

• By drediman
• September 23, 2018
• No Comments

Michael McKean and Edie Falco in The New Group’s production of Sharr White’s “The True” at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

This weekend, I caught Sharr White’s scintillating new play The True, courtesy of The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center. In my mind, the play happily marks Mr. White’s return to form since his harrowing The Other Place early this decade (I had a lesser opinion of his subsequent The Snow Geese and Annapurna). The True depicts Albany city politics during the late 1970s. To his great credit, Mr. White is able to bring this unlikely subject matter to surprisingly riveting and very entertaining theatrical life, thanks in large part to his smart, biting dialogue, as well as Edie Falco’s masterful, no-holds-barred performance. Ms. Falco plays Polly Noonan, a passionate, life-long guardian and cheerleader of Albany’s Democratic machine. When the party’s incumbent mayor Erasmus Corning II faces redundancy during the the 1977 elections due to in-party squabbling, the relentless, foul-mouthed Polly takes matters into her own hands – risking the stability of her close relationships with Erasmus and her patient husband Peter – to ensure his win. Like Anthony Guardino’s equally superb The City of Conversation (which featured a smashing, Ms. Falco-level performance by the late, great, and much-missed Jan Maxwell), Mr. Sharr’s latest presents a compelling portrait of the crafty, largely unsung, and trailblazing women behind American politics.

The Off-Broadway production, smoothly directed by The New Group’s artistic director Scott Elliott, does well to firmly and convincingly depict the play’s time and place (special mention to the spot-on, period-perfect costumes by Clint Ramos). But the production belongs to the central trio of performances, particularly the absolutely magnificent Ms. Falco, who makes a most welcome return to the New York stage — you may remember, she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her memorable performance in Warren Leight’s 1998 play Side Man (which also took home the prize for Best Play) before hitting it big in the hit television series The Sopranos and Nurse Betty. Her fierce, ever-present performance is the engine that drives the production. Her excellent co-stars – Michael McKean as Erasmus and Peter Scolari as Peter – simply ride the rhythms and play off of her sensational, can’t-take-your-eyes-off-of performance.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE TRUE
Off-Broadway, Play
The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 28