Seminar

As someone who works in publishing, the fact that there are so many plays lately about writing is not unwelcome to me. Other Desert Cities and Venus in Fur and now Seminar, Theresa Rebeck's somewhat thin but entirely delightful new comedy about a vicious writing instructor teaching a private workshop to four young writers.

Alan Rickman is that instructor, Leonard, and if seething with disgust and decimating writer after writer doesn't seem like a particularly huge stretch for him, that doesn't make him any less of a joy to watch, and some of his barbs are so incisive that they're squirm-inducing, all the more so because there is the sense throughout that while there is a lot of bluster (and a great deal of offensiveness), quite often he's very likely completely right.

And here comes the sort of giant caveat I feel like the show requires: you're asked to believe, repeatedly, that all it takes to judge someone's talent is skimming one or two pages of their work. While of course I don't want to just sit and watch people read for several hours, and while I can accept that you can know a lot about a writer from any sample of their work, the strain to push aside incredulity does become more intense throughout the show. There are other believability issues throughout as well, but when it comes down to it, the show is just fun enough that for me they were all worth overlooking.

Not only did it tickle me that essentially the play was a love letter to writers of true talent and passion (and a mourning for how difficult the road can be for them), but the show is so perfectly cast that it's a delight to simply sit back and watch a great group of actors tear into the material with so much glee. Lily Rabe is stupidly fantastic as the student hosting the seminar but also whose work is treated to the first and most vicious criticism. She is conflicted, brittle, and annoying as hell, but she's also sympathetic and believable. You can feel her playing against some of the most obvious choices, but not in a mannered way. It all feels so organic. Brilliantly so. Jerry O'Connell is making his Broadway debut, and he's suprisingly great. It feels like a throwaway part at first--the dopey, well-connected douchebag. But as things start to break down for his, a tenderness and affability snuck in and caught me off guard. And Hamish Linklater is Martin, the writer most reticent to share his work. It's almost a sneaky performance because while it seems like it might be Rickman's show or Rabe's for most of the time, in the end, it ends up that Linklater is really the one it all hangs on. Beautifully.

Ultimately, though, it's just a great ensemble in a great ensemble piece. It's got a real hint of the God of Carnage about it--a small group of great actors being vicious and funny in service of a show that's maybe not especially brilliant, but fuck it you're loving it anyway. And you know what? I'll take it!