Drugs, Alcohol & Miserable Marriages: SHIT. MEET. FAN. — Review
Married couples. Boozy get-together. Drunken revelations and vicious recriminations. No, I’m not talking about Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, though it certainly comes to mind when watching Robert O’Hara’s starry new play Shit. Meet. Fan. at MCC Theater.
Instead of two warring couples, O’Hara gives us three, plus a single-ish bachelor and one couple’s daughter. Eve and Rodger (Jane Krakowski and Neil Patrick Harris), a long-married couple who can barely contain their simmering contempt for one another, have invited friends over for a cocktail party to watch a lunar eclipse. Those friends include: Claire and Brett (Debra Messing and Garrett Dillahunt), another couple with similar issues to Eve and Rodger’s, though theirs are exacerbated by Claire’s drinking problems; newlywed couple Hannah and Frank (Constance Wu and Michael Oberholtzer), still in the honeymoon phase, though not for long; and Logan (Tramell Tillman), who is supposed to bring his new girlfriend over to meet everyone, but shows up alone. All the men were in the same fraternity together in college, meaning friendships run deep, as do secrets.
There was once another couple a part of this group, Cindy and Mark, but they’re going through a nasty separation after Mark’s infidelity came to light. The men side with Mark, the women side with Cindy. That’s the way things go in this sitcom-adjacent script. It’s men vs. women, husbands vs. wives, boys are from Jupiter, girls are from Mars.
However, discussion of their old friends’ dissolving marriage inspires Eve to play a game: everyone has to put their cell phones on the coffee table, face up, and every message that comes through—be it text, phone call, or email—must be read out loud and answered for all to hear. It’s a terrible idea for a game and though it takes some convincing, somehow everyone eventually agrees to play.
What follows is a series of mishaps, misunderstandings, and secrets revealed, some hilarious, some heartbreaking. As we wait for messages to roll in, we learn more about each couple and the tension threatening to snap the fragile wire of their marriages, though O’Hara’s painting in broad strokes, failing to flesh out each character beyond a certain set of characteristics.
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Still, this isn’t just a dishy comedy about couples behaving badly on Clint Ramos’ brutalist Nancy Meyers set. This is Robert O’Hara, after all, who’s also directing. Beneath the fleet-footed comedy, there’s a play about privilege and race going on, too. Logan and Hannah are the only two non-white people in this group of friends, which they bond over. Logan has the benefit of fraternity brotherhood and years of friendship, while Hannah is just getting to know these people. He acts as a port in a storm for her as the night devolves and relationships begin to implode.
It’s hard not to enjoy yourself when watching this bevy of talented actors on stage. Krakowski plays a great master of ceremonies presiding over this wicked game, whose mastery of comedy can distract from the trite script. Boozy and miserable, Messing often steals the scene, whether she’s speaking or not.
Tillman, whose late-play reveal is the only one that actually makes an impact, rises above the material to convey his character’s ability to project easygoing charm while battling a roiling sea within. While the tonal shift of the play feels too abrupt, O’Hara guides Tillman towards an interesting conversation about the way identity is wrapped up in privilege.
The play’s disappointing coda undermines all that came before. It does, however, bring back Eve and Rodger’s daughter Sam, played by Genevieve Hannelius, whose disappearance after the first scene leaves the audience wondering how she’ll factor into the adult mess—a Chekhov’s daughter.
While it’s clear this play shares DNA with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, O'Hara is smartly toying with that certain kind of “great American play” by introducing conversations about race and privilege into the genre. It’s an interesting and worthwhile experiment but it isn’t completely successful here. There are too many characters left underdeveloped and too many threads left unexplored.
As a predictable, foul-mouthed comedy, Shit. Meet. Fan. could work, especially with this top-tier cast, but it’s clear O’Hara has set his sights higher as both playwright and director. As his body of work will indicate, he is one of our best creative minds working in the theater today. Shit. Meet. Fan. doesn’t rise to the level we’ve come to expect.
Shit. Meet. Fan. runs through December 15 at MCC Theater in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.