Love may keep us
together, but what the world needs now is discount
Versace and disco.
In Paul Rudnick's
uplifting play, The New Century, now on view
off-Broadway at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse
Theater, four disparate people searching for a brighter
future are brought together through the special magic
of shopping and dancing.
Told as a series
of four short plays, the production begins with Helene
(a spirited Linda Lavin), a Jewish mother speaking to the
Massapequa chapter of the ''Parents of Lesbians, Gays,
Bisexuals, the Transgendered, the Questioning, the
Curious, the Creatively Concerned and Others.'' She is
proving herself as ''the most tolerant, and the most loving
mother of all time,'' and she makes quite a convincing
case.
Her three
children have all come out to her with various sexual
permutations, and she wishes they wouldn't be quite so
honest. ''And I think, so many people's children, they
hide everything. They live separate, secret lives.
They're like strangers. I love those children.''
Lavin looks
terrific in her sparkly champagne suit (costumes are by
William Ivey Long) and perfectly coiffed white bob. Her
delivery is spot-on, wringing humor and sympathy from
every withering line and look.
Next we meet Mr.
Charles (Peter Bartlett), one of Rudnick's recurring
characters, who has been banned from New York City for being
''too gay,'' which is also the title of his South
Florida cable-access show. Mr. Charles claims to be
''so deeply homosexual that, with just a glance, I can
actually turn someone gay.''
Bartlett is
swishy and fabulous in the role -- but the writing in this
particular piece falls a bit flat. It's redeemed by a
hilarious 60-second history of American gay theater
and by the dim-witted, hunky presence of Shane (Mike
Doyle), a young dancer Mr. Charles met at a nightclub and
calls his ''ward.''
We are then
introduced to Barbara Ellen Diggs (the superb Jayne
Houdyshell), a craftsperson from Decatur, Ill., speaking to
the Junior Chamber of Commerce. She shows off some of
her creations, including microwave bonnets, toilet
paper caddies, and a hand-crocheted toaster tuxedo.
Houdyshell takes
potentially fey dialogue and invests it with real
feeling. A discussion involving crafts becomes an especially
poignant reminiscence about her son, a Broadway
costume designer and memories of New York.
Helene, Mr.
Charles, and Barbara Ellen all come together, for different
contrived reasons, in a Manhattan maternity ward in the last
piece. They are rather somberly contemplating what
advice they would give the newborns when Shane bursts
in, all manic energy, to tell them about his
miraculous discovery -- there's an amazing store near the
9/11 ground zero called Century 21. ''It's like if
Patti LuPone was a store,'' he says.
This new century
may have its problems, Rudnick says, but turn up ''I Got
the Music in Me'' and try some retail therapy. There ain't
no stoppin' us now. (AP)