Family affairs: ‘Good Time Charlie’ is sweet but shallow
Actor and playwright Ryan J. Haddad is most comfortable when he’s talking about himself. After all, who knows him better? Haddad, who is gay and has cerebral palsy, has mined the events of his life, attempts at relationships, love of theater, and family in solo shows “Dark Disabled Stories” and “Hold Me in the Water.” … Read More
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Actor and playwright Ryan J. Haddad is most comfortable when he’s talking about himself. After all, who knows him better? Haddad, who is gay and has cerebral palsy, has mined the events of his life, attempts at relationships, love of theater, and family in solo shows “Dark Disabled Stories” and “Hold Me in the Water.” Haddad is an engaging performer, an Obie-winner, and a marvelous storyteller.
In his new work, “Goodtime Charlie,” now at The Public, Haddad expands his scope to put other members of the extended family on the stage with him. The focus is, ostensibly, on his Uncle Charlie, also gay, who pined for the footlights but settled on staying in Ohio and becoming a dentist. Charlie conceded his dreams after a pained conflict with his parents over his desire to be an artist and his own coming out, he imbued in young Ryan a love of the theater and watched as his nephew lived his dream of becoming a celebrated writer and performer.
The resulting piece is a series of vignettes playing out over Ryan’s life (Haddad named the character he plays after himself.) that are charming and often touching. The family, despite conflicts, is tight-knit and loving, and Charlie’s expanded chosen family includes his husband Lou and the retired professor and film buff Sheldon, whom Charlie cares for throughout his life. Despite this, though, the primary focus of the piece is on Ryan — his ups and downs, coming out, moving to New York and so on.
It’s all very pleasant, but it really isn’t much of a play. Haddad has framed the piece with a very meta perspective in which he, as playwright and narrator, comments on scenes, addresses the audience, and also participates in the action. The scenes are virtually all expository, and the characters are never really explored. For example, we never know what it costs Charlie to give up his dream, though he ends up, at least on the surface, perfectly happy. At one point (in the meta part) Ryan, presumably the playwright now, is talking to Charlie (the actor playing the part) and apologizing for making Charlie relive the difficult scene of coming out to his parents and their initial rejection of him. The dramaturgical devices tend to trip over one another, and it makes the piece clumsy and at times disjointed.
[caption id="attachment_65440" align="aligncenter" width="466"]
Ryan J. Haddad in “Goodtime Charlie."Joan Marcus[/caption]
Despite all this, it’s difficult not to find the characters appealing. Ryan’s lesbian Aunt Janice, Charlie, Sheldon, and Charlie’s husband Lou are all affectionate, bright, and witty. They fight among themselves about who first introduced Ryan to theater, and they all talk about sex with remarkable frankness. There’s a set piece with a group of gay men gossiping about theater, and while it’s amusing, it’s a hackneyed trope that brings us no closer to the men themselves. The effect of all of this is not so much that we have been watching a family grow and change over the years, particularly in the context of Ryan’s memories, but that we’ve all been invited over to flip through photo albums or watch home movies and hear stories about a quirky family. However fun the stories might be, though, they are told from a distance. Their portraits feel idealized, mythic in the ways that family lore becomes legend, reducing the individuals and steeped in Haddad’s rosy remembrances. It’s all very loving, but it’s also very bland.
Haddad leads the company, playing Ryan, a version of himself. Those who know his previous shows will recognize his unique combination of acerbity, heart, and commentary that almost approaches camp. Jonathan Raviv is warm and funny throughout as Charlie. Beth Malone is both wry and sweet as Aunt Janice, and Tim Bagley is affable and warm as Lou, Charlie’s husband. The rest of the cast hits their marks, but there’s really not much more they can do because the script makes them all essentially one dimensional.
“Good Time Charlie” is a memory play. Yet unlike successful examples, the quintessential one, of course, being Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” Haddad’s piece never effectively establishes a dramatic rationale for the character whose memory it is and thus provides no compelling reason for an audience to go on the journey with him. What we’re left with are a picture of an unremarkable happy family (In the Tolstoy sense, that is. “Anna Karenina opens with the statement “all happy families are alike.”), some legitimate laughs and lots of easy sentiment. It’s diverting, but it’s not enough.
"Good Time Charlie" | The Public Theater | 425 Lafayette Street | Tues-Sat 7 p.m.; Sat, Sun 1 p.m. | $99 at The Public Theater | 2 hours, 15 mins, 1 intermission
Ryan J. Haddad in “Goodtime Charlie."Joan Marcus[/caption]
Despite all this, it’s difficult not to find the characters appealing. Ryan’s lesbian Aunt Janice, Charlie, Sheldon, and Charlie’s husband Lou are all affectionate, bright, and witty. They fight among themselves about who first introduced Ryan to theater, and they all talk about sex with remarkable frankness. There’s a set piece with a group of gay men gossiping about theater, and while it’s amusing, it’s a hackneyed trope that brings us no closer to the men themselves. The effect of all of this is not so much that we have been watching a family grow and change over the years, particularly in the context of Ryan’s memories, but that we’ve all been invited over to flip through photo albums or watch home movies and hear stories about a quirky family. However fun the stories might be, though, they are told from a distance. Their portraits feel idealized, mythic in the ways that family lore becomes legend, reducing the individuals and steeped in Haddad’s rosy remembrances. It’s all very loving, but it’s also very bland.
Haddad leads the company, playing Ryan, a version of himself. Those who know his previous shows will recognize his unique combination of acerbity, heart, and commentary that almost approaches camp. Jonathan Raviv is warm and funny throughout as Charlie. Beth Malone is both wry and sweet as Aunt Janice, and Tim Bagley is affable and warm as Lou, Charlie’s husband. The rest of the cast hits their marks, but there’s really not much more they can do because the script makes them all essentially one dimensional.
“Good Time Charlie” is a memory play. Yet unlike successful examples, the quintessential one, of course, being Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” Haddad’s piece never effectively establishes a dramatic rationale for the character whose memory it is and thus provides no compelling reason for an audience to go on the journey with him. What we’re left with are a picture of an unremarkable happy family (In the Tolstoy sense, that is. “Anna Karenina opens with the statement “all happy families are alike.”), some legitimate laughs and lots of easy sentiment. It’s diverting, but it’s not enough.
"Good Time Charlie" | The Public Theater | 425 Lafayette Street | Tues-Sat 7 p.m.; Sat, Sun 1 p.m. | $99 at The Public Theater | 2 hours, 15 mins, 1 intermission
