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TagsMichael McKean heads a feisty Steppenwolf troupe
BY MICHAEL SOMMERS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
BROADWAY REVIEW
Playwright Tracy Letts all but set Broadway on fire with his 2008 Pulitzer-winning family melodrama "August: Osage County." His latest, "Superior Donuts," is no such barn-burner. This comedy-drama is a tasty bit of Americana by way of the cruller: Think a modern-day Norman Rockwell illustration done in powdered cinnamon.
Opening at the Music Box, Letts' play is an enjoyable character study of a Polish-American guy who runs a crummy donut parlor in a shabby part of Chicago. His day-to-day gone as grey as his straggling ponytail and ratty tie-dyes, pessimistic Arthur (Michael McKean) is turning 60 and now finds himself haunted by a lifetime of regrets.
Enter new employee Franco (Jon Michael Hill), a live-wire high school drop-out who soon brightens the ageing pothead's existence with a million dreams but then gets into a nasty jam with a loan shark.So — can moody-broody Arthur rouse his sorry self to help the kid? The second act offers a tumultuous fistfight, a nice touch of romance with a lady cop and even a witty echo of Chekhov courtesy a Russian émigré who owns the electronics shop next door and covets Arthur's location.
Although his story is fairly (if pleasantly) predictable, Letts' warm-hearted writing is shot through with plenty of rich, honest humor.
Direct from Chicago and astutely tuned by director Tina Landau, a crack Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble vividly brings to feisty life nine urban characters converging upon designer James Schuette's realistically grubby storefront.
The geezer-hipster give and take sparking between McKean's melancholy Arthur and Hill's cocky Franco is entertaining - especially so during their funny "racist test" bit — while the welcome presence of Yasen Peyankov's ebullient Russian, Kate Buddeke's lovelorn Irish-American cop and Robert Maffia's neurotic bad guy lend spice to this sentimental but scarcely cloying occasion.
For anyone seeking a sweet play nicely done, "Superior Donuts" is sure to appeal, hook, line and sinker.
"Superior Donuts" plays an open-end run at the Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., New York. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.telecharge.com.
ALSO BY MICHAEL SOMMERS
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