Never underestimate the attraction of celebrities on stage. Seven actors are performing in “Shit. Meet. Fan.” at the MCC Theater. With Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Krakowski, Debra Messing (as Claire) and Constance Wu (as Hannah) leading the line-up, it was enough to get me to buy a ticket to the domestic comedy-drama play written and directed by Robert O’Hara (“Slave Play”) .
A group of friends gather in Roger (Harris) and Eve’s (Krakowski ) luxurious apartment to watch the lunar eclipse from their balcony. Eve, a therapist, suggests that they play a game and all put their phones on the table in the living room. If there’s a call or a text, they need to answer and put the calls on speaker. The first moments of the 95 minute show were funny with lots of humor and joking around.
The four men are former fraternity brothers so they have history. In addition to Harris, Garret Dillahunt plays Brett, husband to Hannah, and Michael Oberholtzer is Frank, Claire’s husband.The one single man is Logan (played by Tramell Tillman )who says his date couldn’t come because she was running a fever. Although the four actors work well together, their real ages belie the fact they would have been in school together.
As the calls and texts arrive, tempers flare, relationships fray and the language gets coarser and coarser. For some in the audience the cursing was funny; yet around me, few were laughing.
Predictably, each character gets a call or text, and secrets and lies are revealed. Most of them are sexual and involve affairs. A couple of calls reveal the unknown sexual orientation of one of the group. By the end of the play, O’Hara introduces race as a barrier.
Logan is black and the newly-wed Hannah is Asian and obviously both feel like outsiders. In one scene, the two stand on opposite sides of the stage while the others are all in the center. Once the secrets are revealed, one wonders if the relationships can ever be salvaged. This has become a dangerous game. There’s lots of shouting, especially from Messing as the alcoholic Claire.
I don’t mind off-color language in a show, especially if it serves a purpose but the overuse of explicit language felt gratuitous. Maybe it was just me because the more Messing repeated certain phrases, the more some in the audience laughed.
The ending has an interesting coda but it wasn’t enough to salvage the play for me. As we left, the man sitting next to me noted that the movie was much better, so I made a mental note to watch it.
Later, a friend asked me about the show, so I described my reactions and misgivings. Despite that, she got excited about the performers and expressed interest in buying a ticket. I was surprised but once again realized you can never underestimate star power.
