Love is a commodity I can’t 
afford. — Gregor Antonescu
Love hurts. It can hurt as much to be loved as to love, if deep down you don’t really like yourself much. That’s the takeaway from Terence Rattigan’s Man and Boy, which opened on October 9th at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway, presented by the Roundabout. Rattigan is probably best known in this country for the films made of his plays Separate Tables (1954) and The Winslow Boy (1946), but he was also a hugely popular and commercial playwright in his day. After John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger in 1956 many of the well-made plays and their authors faded from popularity in favor of the kitchen sink drama, and it’s a pleasure to see Rattigan again.
In fact, in this 1963 play, set in 1934, Rattigan seems to be trying on some kitchen sink tactics—it’s not a play about the upper classes in distress (well, it is in a way); it’s set in Greenwich Village and we spend much of the first act with an impoverished young bar piano player, Basil (Adam Driver) and his actress girlfriend Carol (Virginia Krull). Carol turns on the radio and we hear “Anything Goes,” a bit of product placement for Roundabout’s Broadway hit. They talk about the financial scandal of the downfall of financial tycoon Gregor Antonescu (Frank Langella), in the newspaper headlines. It isn’t long before we realize that young Basil is actually Antonescu’s angry, disaffected illegitimate son, Vassily. Not long after that, Sven Johnson (Michael Siberry) shows up to secure the premises, and then dad himself. Rattigan’s story was inspired by that of Swedish magnate Ivan Krueger, known as “the Match King,” whose bad securities were greater than the national debt of Sweden, and crashed in 1932. Well, the more things change…
Act One is pretty slow going. It seems that Roundabout chose the play solely for a loose parallel between recent financial crises and the one depicted here. Antonescu seems to have defrauded clients and overclaimed securities, and only a merger going through will keep his stock from falling irretrievably. While there’s a frisson of interest when Daddy pimps his son out by implication to the homosexual CEO of a merger target (Zach Herries, with slimy charm) by suggesting Basil is his young and soon to be lonely lover, this doesn’t rescue the act from talkiness. You might be tempted to leave at intermission.
But don’t.
Act II goes another way entirely (in fact, Act II has so little to do with Act I it could stand alone). During intermission, a warrant was put out for Antonescu’s arrest. The merger is now irrelevant and we’ll spend Act II in a long, emotional confrontation 
between father and son. Antonescu’s jumped-up countess wife (Francesca Faridany) shows up and reveals herself to be too limited to stand by her man. The only person capable of loving unconditionally is Vassily, and even when he discovers some of his most cherished beliefs about Dad are lies too (one about his father’s pitiful childhood), he still can’t not love him.
It’s glorious melodrama. Frank Langella was never more elegant and heartbreaking. He’s dying, to add to the pathos, but when weak he says “let me concentrate on my balance sheet” and closes his eyes, which is all kinds of funny. If he lets down his guard, he’ll disintegrate. A quiet silent scene alone with a photograph is a whole story. Driver’s callow youth never hits a false note, veering from calling his father nothing to a great man, all too believably. Faridany’s brittle selfishness provides some slightly implausible comic relief. As Sven, Siberry reveals even less compassion than his boss, though more approachable, which is an interesting take on the yes-man. Brian Hutchison plays David Beeston, an accountant, a role that doesn’t really pay off. Kull’s Carol felt a little too 21st century somehow, but the character is largely there as an expositional foil.
Derek McLane’s dreary Greenwich Village basement flat is a treat, down to the water-stained ceiling and piles of clutter. Martin Pakledinza’s costumes are lovely, particularly the countess’s dress with a hood, but I did notice that Carol’s stockings held themselves up without garters, which I don’t think was possible then. Maria Aitken direction hits the right emotional notes despite the flat delivery of Act One.
Though far from perfect, Man and Boy tugs at the heart.
I saw Langella play Dracula in Boston before it hit Broadway. The sets were done by Edward Gorey and they stole the show. Langella had one great line: after a night out being a vampire bat he turns back into the Count in the bedroom where a maid is dusting. She says “Oh, you startled me!” He says “I’ve been told I have a light step.” Other than that, he spent the rest of the evening chewing on the scenery.
I hear you Conan, but Langella is almost as great in this as he was in Frost/Nixon (they play first, then the film). Although I have a business/personal connection to one of the actors in the play (not Langella), and can’t comment on the rest of the production because of this, Langella is worth seeing (and he barely takes a nibble out of the scenery).
For a real hoot, try “Venus in Fur” at the Manhattan Theatre Club (not quite as great as it was at the Classic State in 2010) but it does have the addition of Hugh Dancy this time around.
Ugh.. sorry about the punctuation in that last sentence. I hit the wrong key and didn’t proof (doing too many things at once).