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The key pleasure ofSummer, 1976comes from listening to Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht talk.
The two of them how havent they worked alongside each other before?
have distinct instruments and know how to deploy them so well.
Linneys got an assertive alto, while Hechts timbre is reedier and more winding, a viola and oboe.
Id happily see them take on any number of double-act parts (Hechts Glinda to Linneys Elphaba?
Auburn sets up an oil-and-water dynamic, as circumstances needing each other to babysit emulsify them together.
Their daughters become friends right away, but they bond more slowly.
Thats ano, duhthat, treated with such consideration, is alsoso true.
The spell thatSummer, 1976casts depends on Linney and Hechts tuning the audience to the plays quietly rueful frequency.
Here, she draws out the humor, as well as Dianas libido, which undercuts her certainty.
and trying to convince herself of her own resignation.
Shes placidly easy-breezy, you realize, as a defense mechanism.
(Yes, this is the sort of play wherebuying a deskis a crucial plot development.)
But it never goes off course.
The scale ofSummer, 1976makes it easy to dismiss.
(Even something centered on a great performance likePrima Facieis amped up to 11.)
Everything need not be some big occasion.
Summer, 1976is at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.
