Broadway’s brand new, side-splitting farce is an outrageous tale of sex, betrayal and desire as one woman decides to expose her latest affair to both her husband — and to her lover’s wife. The true meaning of fate and faith, identity and infidelity, love and marriage are all called into question as a surprising and hilarious web of secrets unravels in this ridiculously funny romantic comedy.
For all the recent politicizing of the queer community’s lack of moral decency, The Cottage, which opens at Broadway’s Hayes Theater on July 24, is having a great time with extramarital merriment, heavy drinking, and more cigarette smoking than even the Marlboro Man could endure. Playwright Sandy Rustin (whose stage adaptation of the film Clue is one of the most-produced plays in the U.S., according to her biography) delivers a period farce set in 1923 pastoral England and stars one of the early aughts’ most famous gay-for-pay actors, Eric McCormack. Jason Alexander, who played the famously neurotic George Costanza on Seinfeld for nine seasons, directs a seasoned cast that climbs an uphill battle to excavate witty banter from a predictable plot that rarely stays ahead of the audience.
The Cottage is not a dud; its momentary outbreaks of hilarity thankfully break up stretches of conversation about characters’ tangled pasts, and restatements of the comic setups in front of us. But, as wittily complicated as those summaries can sound, we’ve already got it. It’s been unpacked for us in the moment, over and over again. If The Cottage isn’t a farce, what is it? This critic couldn’t tell you, and—as presented—the production doesn’t seem to know the answer either.
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2023 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Costume Design (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Sydney Maresca |
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Play | Alex Moffat |
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Scenic Design (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Paul Tate DePoo III |
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