An off-Broadway company called the New Group, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, have a particular affinity for the plays of Mike Leigh, and having previously given New York outings for Smelling a Rat, Goose-Pimples and Ecstasy, are now presenting the belated New York premiere for what remains his most famous play, Abigail’s Party. But what’s wonderful about their galvanisingly funny and painfully truthful production that I saw last night, is that it comes up fresh, as if it’s an entirely new play, which of course it is over here. So you’re not watching it with an audience anticipating every line, but with one who are discovering it for themselves. (One of the most blissful nights of my theatregoing life, however, was a one-night only reading by the original cast on the Olivier Theatre stage some years back, when the audience clearly knew every line).
Here, in Scott Elliott’s meticulously choreographed production – alert to every awful nuance of the strained marital relationships being played out at 13 Richmond Road with the the divorcee from Number 9 (whose daughter is having the noisy party of the title, whose booming music is a persistent presence here) and the newly-arrived couple from Number 16 – it’s like Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has been transposed to English suburbia. And though phoney English accents can sometimes present a challenge to enjoying British plays in New York, this cast come up trumps, with not a weak link between them. Movie actress Jennifer Jason Leigh has been getting the attention as Beverly, but Max Baker, Elizabeth Jasicki, Darren Goldstein and Lisa Emery are equally superb.
