Review: A Promising Wasserstein Revival of An American Daughter Falls Flat

We are almost 40 years out from Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize win for The Heidi Chronicles, and it’s an ideal time for major revivals of her work. An American Daughter, produced by La Femme Theatre and now running at the Pershing Square Signature Center, sounds promising. The original Broadway run had mixed reviews but gave Lynne Thigpen a Tony for Best Featured Actress. Unfortunately, this production trends in the wrong direction, resulting in a messy, unbalanced show that doesn’t have much to say.

Lyssa Hughes (Jean Lichty) is preparing for her confirmation hearing to become Surgeon General. She’s a safe choice, championing liberal policies for the lefties but acceptable to the right because her father Alan (Dakin Matthews) is a Republican senator. At first, it seems like her home life is where conflict will arise: her husband, Walter (Robert Sean Leonard), is an academic struggling with mid-career malaise, and her best friend, Judith (Montego Glover), is dealing with depression while trying to have a baby as a single woman.

But it’s an interview with popular newscaster Timber Tucker (Chris Ghaffari) that kicks off Lyssa’s problems. When speaking to Timber, Walter lets it slip that Lyssa skipped jury duty. Then Lyssa makes a throw-away comment about her mother making icebox cakes. The press picks up on both, but her comments about her mother cause the bigger stir, as women around the country chide her for being condescending and snobby. Quincy Quince (Carmen Zilles), a former student of Walter’s, and Morrow McCarthy (Ryan Spahn), a gay, conservative family friend, insert themselves into the mess, seemingly to further their own careers (though it’s murky—both the script and the production play fast and loose with character motivation).

By the time we get to this point, the production is spiraling. Lichty (La Femme’s founder) is drastically miscast, playing someone who is 42, but is actually and appears to be two decades older. It makes no sense that Lyssa and Judith are supposed to be the same age, undermining Judith’s fertility storyline. Lichty’s performance is also uneven, with line readings that plow through jokes and steamroll over Wasserstein’s jaunty, clever dialogue. She’s also giving a formal performance, which at times works for the buttoned-up doctor, but doesn’t allow her to hit the emotional highs and lows.

The unevenness extends to the rest of the cast, who occupy different spots on the naturalism-to-stylized continuum. It’s hard to fault Leonard for being so realistic when he’s doing a good job, but his ease emphasizes Lichty’s shortcomings in their scenes together. Similarly, Mary Beth Peil gives a layered, appealing performance as Charlotte, Alan’s willowy, Southern fourth wife nicknamed “Chubby” (the most logical name in a parade of absurd monikers). She’s wonderful, but does nothing to help out Lichty, who flails next to her.

Only Glover is meeting Lichty halfway, with an appropriately heightened performance that creates a bridge between Lichty and the rest of the cast. She saves the group scenes she’s in, but since she’s relegated to a side plot that has little to do with everything else, she’s not enough to salvage the wreckage.

Sarna Lapine’s direction drags and lacks a strong point of view. The production bears at least a little responsibility for the disjointed script: the first and second act are Frankenstein-ed together from two different previous productions. This might explain why the play lurches instead of seamlessly building. Granted, Wasserstein’s script is sometimes confounding and treads into misogyny—why does Lyssa’s climatic screed criticize “the women of America” for not being aware of the problems in health care that affect them, instead of the patriarchal medical system that ignores their issues? It seems like Lyssa is just as haughty and superior as the public believes her to be, yet we are supposed to root for her. A more insightful production would have probed this and other contradictions, and a competent one would mitigate them. This staging does neither, highlighting issues that already glare.

Some of the production values are stellar. Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams’s set is intricate, specific, and lovely. Alan C. Edwards’s lighting creates glorious sunshine through the huge windows, and we witness a convincing and gorgeous sunset in one important scene.

There’s a lot of talent in the cast and crew, which is part of what makes this American Daughter so disappointing, Hopefully the next Wasserstein revival will hit the mark.