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An upturned flashlight in hand, her large eyes blinking furiously,
she peers into the stage darkness like a newborn koala – and with
that entrance, Marcy Harriell proceeds to channel the comedic charms
of both the ditsy Judy Holliday and the daffy Carole Lombard.
Playing Jan, the lonelyhearts zooworker with an inner vixen,
Harriell imbues her character with the kind of zany intelligence
once associated with the roles of Gildna Radner, even as there’s
also a dollop of the ingenuous confusion displayed by Marilyn Monroe
in How to Marry a Millionaire. All of these remarkable
comedic talents come together in Harriell’s stellar performance
which provides the climax to the three-part, eight-character,
three-actor play Getting Home now playing at the 2econd Stage
Uptown.
At a time when the headlines are
so often about death and destruction, Anton Dudley’s Getting Home,
a ninety-minute rumination about love and relationships in
present-day New York provides an anodyne for the soul, reminding us
that connection is life’s goal. With the two male leads, Brian
Henderson and Manu Narayan. each playing three characters, there’s
an element of Arthur Schnitzler’s Reigen as the daisy chain
works its way from flower to flower – until ultimately the eight
urban denizens are entwined. And while nearly all of the characters
are given ample opportunity to come forward and break through the
fourth wall, it’s Jan, as inhabited by Harriell, who in speaking
about the spell woven by the magic of love and the hope that lies
therein, lingers longest after the lights have come up.
Best always,
Mark and Robert
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