Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa play a quarreling couple stuck in a hospital room in Nicky Silver’s ‘The Lyons.’
Death looms large in Nicky Silvers Broadway play, The Lyons, a caustic and canny comedy about family dysfunction packed with surprises that are alternately hilarious, tragic and absurd.
Emerging just as big as the Grim Reaper in her ferociously funny and constantly compelling star turn is Linda Lavin, who plays a wife (and soon-to-be-widow) and mother whose bark and bite can wreak havoc. And has.
The Tony-winning actress is in impeccable company in this production dexterously directed by Mark Brokaw. It was seen last fall at the Vineyard Theatre and arrives at the Cort Theatre with a snugger running time (a mini-scene in the second half has been cut) and the same cast. Everyone is at the top of their game.
Same goes for the author. Silver has often blended laughs and anguish, from The Food Chain, about a troubled poet, to Beautiful Child, a taboo love story.
His ideas and dialogue are sharper than ever in The Lyons, a scathing commentary about families and how destructive they can be. Sometimes, he suggests, youre better off without your blood relatives. Youve got to know when to fold em.
For Ben Lyons (Dick Latessa), thats a non-issue. Ravaged by cancer, hes dying in a hospital, while hi s wife of 40 years, Rita (Lavin), faces the future and how shes going to redo her home and life. She despises both. And her husband. When Ben expresses fears about hell, Rita zings, Jews dont believe in hell. And who are you to get into Hell? What did you ever do?
What indeed? Their grown children are certainly stunted in terms of major accomplishments. Lisa (Kate Jennings Grant) is a divorced alcoholic up to her eyeballs in denial.
Curtis (Michael Esper) is a fiction writer living off of Moms allowance and faded into a secret sicko fantasy world. That leads him to a disturbing encounter with real estate agent (Gregory Wooddell) and an RN played by
Brenda Pressley, who lends a glimmer of optimism amid the corrosive doings.
Meantime, Lavin nurses every biting barb, telling gesture and unprintable expletive. Silver has given her some of the best and bitchiest lines, but Lavins special gift is finding nuance not even in the script.
As a m other from hell and, in the end, of reinvention, Lavin is to die for. Miss her and weep.
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