A well overdue Broadway debut from a personal favorite playwright, The Cottage played a limited run at 2nd Stage's Helen Hayes theatre starting previews on July 7th and officially opening on July 24th, 2023.
What is it about?
The Cottage is an over-the-top feminist comedy centered around understanding the ideas of fate, infidelity, love, and marriage. The show centers around a night in Sylvia’s husband’s family cottage in the English countryside. We meet Sylvia, played by Laura Bell Bundy, and Beau, played by Eric McCormack, who have met up for their annual one-night stand. This poses a problem as Sylvia is currently married to Beau’s brother Clarke, who is played by Broadway newcomer: Alex Moffat, and according to Sylvia: is simply mediocre at sex. Sylvia, the catalyst for the drama about to unfold, tells Beau, quite enthusiastically, that she’s sent a telegram to Clarke. She’s told him of the annual affair and she couldn’t be more delighted. However, Beau is less than thrilled. He’s not told his wife, Marjorie, portrayed by Lilly Cooper, and has no intention of leaving her. She’s pregnant after all!
Clarke shows up at the cottage much to both Sylvia, who has finally come to her senses, and Beau's dismay. Only he is not alone! Clarke comes to the cottage with Beau's wife, Marjorie, close behind. They had come to the cottage together. Shockingly they had also been partaking in an affair, with theirs being much more frequent comparatively.
But that’s not where the fun ends! Shortly behind them enters Beau's other mistress: Dierdre. She comes to deliver the most wonderful news! She’s told her husband Richard, who is played by Nehal Joshi, that she’s divorcing him so she can be with Beau, despite his consistent pleas that he does not want to leave his wife. Rather he wants everything to stay exactly as it is. Dierdre simply forgets, until panic has set in, to reveal one minuscule detail: her husband Richard is a murderer!
As the group of five now panic over what they believe to be their impending death, the audience learns Marjorie’s babies are Clarkes, Sylvia is left alone but still fantasizes about her past boyfriend who was killed (or so she thinks), and Dierdre is, to put it mildly, innocent. Clarke and Marjorie are ready to run off together and Beau doesn't want to marry Sylvia, he likes it exactly how it is: one day per year.
As they try to come up with a solution, and deeply fail, despite their fruitful attempts, we learn more about each character's past. The more we learn the more we see the connections and the more the threat of Richard grows.
A brief production history:
The Cottage is a new play written by Sandy Rustin and inspired by the works of Noel Coward and Sandy's:
"frustration for having not found female roles that [she] was into at that moment."
Rustin was tired of male-centered comedic stories that were wholly driven by the male characters' desires and aspirations. Women, if included at all, simply served as means for men to use to obtain those goals.
The Cottage would first premiere at the Astoria Performing Arts Center in 2013 specifically in the basement of a Korean church. During the show run in Queens, audiences saw a set designed by Stephen Dobay in which, according to an interview David Gordon Rustin claims:
"He had a $1,000 budget to make the set and he literally cut up cardboard boxes to make it look like a thatched roof."
The show has clearly evolved from that point, now having a much larger budget and a set designed by Paul Tate dePoo III, also making his Broadway debut. The 2023 run marks Rustin’s Broadway Debut as it played a limited run at 2nd Stages: Helen Hayes Theatre. The smallest and most intimate of the Broadway houses. (A fact that looking back on it, was a perfect choice for this show) The show, however, did not simply stop development in those ten years between its humble beginnings and Broadway. Instead, it evolved as our political climate did. We saw many professional productions across America including theatre Aspen, the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport New York, and Barter Theatre in Sarasota Florida following numerous rewrites notably reflecting the current state of affairs.
In 2013, Sylvia, one of the main characters, was portrayed by Amy Rutberg. Following Rutberg was Laura Bell Bundy in the 2023 Broadway production. In fact, not a single actor in the Broadway run had previously played a role in any of the major professional productions in the prior ten years. Because none of these actors had a chance to work with this material before the show's residency at The Helen Hayes Theatre, I find it interesting to look at their motivations and how they developed their characters outside of the written material that Rustin had prepared. Laura Bell Bundy, explains in an interview with Gillian Russo:
"She specifically recalled watching Coward's Present Laughter, starring Kevin Kline, Cobie Smulders, and Kate Burton on Broadway, and adopting the style of "their deliveries and their comedic timing." But Bundy also named Bette Midler, Lucille Ball, and Carol Burnett as inspirations"
Funnily enough, that isn't where the influence of Carol Burnett stops. Rustin claims she also took inspiration. As did Dana Steingold, who plays Dierdre, specifically the drunken bits done by Burnett and Lucile Ball. It is easy to see the influence, but it isn't all Carol. Director, Jason Alexander further told Russo:
"that's not even the half of the comedic influences in The Cottage — those are just the American ones. Rustin's play is set in England, remember, so the team also looked to "the great British comedies that border on silly and sophisticated all at the same time"
By the time we saw The Cottage on Broadway in 2023, the show had gone through many iterations and edits following the political climate that was surrounding the world at the time. The show may be a farce but it is carefully constructed to have political and social undertones within its zany and uncanny bones.
So what did you think?
The Cottage is one of my favorite plays of the 2023-2024 season. Rustin’s writing takes just the proper amount of twists and turns to balance the sheer absurdity with which she leads her stories. The Cottage asks you to address the ideas of fate and femininity through a crystal clear lens but does it in such a manner that the audience can’t help but laugh and have a grand time. It’s a beautiful layering of high-brow comedy and wit, often boarding overwhelming in exactly the perfect blend.
The show has a point, beyond a doubt. It’s quite clear from the beginning what is asked of you as an audience member. Yet it’s carefully and constructively woven into the fabric of the storytelling. It’s not a drama, it’s a farce and it knows exactly that. A woman, Sylvia, has been in charge of the narrative all this time, subverting the traditional gender roles of the 1920s and beyond, especially as she begins to question the value of relying on men for happiness. She is sex-positive and ready to speak up to get what she wants, and its refreshing to see. We see Rustin's writing come to life as the physicality of the 6 actors push the spoken words to new heights, through dramatic leaps and hurdles over furniture to the use of absurdly placed cigarette lighters.
One of the highlights of this show, aside from the hilarious script, was the set design. A typical box set that, no matter how many times I returned to the theatre, I could always find something new and exciting within. In each corner, pictures depicting scenes similar to future scenes of the play, and an utterly unhinged amount of hidden lighters. It was hard not to find joy with this set design. I loved this show enough that I did return to it, many times, and in each rewatching, I found a new detail to ponder the significance over. Every detail so meticulously thought out within the over-the-top set design. I love a set design that plays that role within the experience. The intricate attributes of the design should lead you to consider the significance and The Cottage did exactly that from the moment you walked it with the curtain, which depicted scenes and foreshadowed what was yet to come.
Another highlight was the inspiration of many of my favorite comedic icons, both American and European. I have been a long-time fan of many of the aforementioned comedians as well as Rustin's work, as an aside, have you seen Clue (?!), so to see that seamless blend of inspiration and originality, quite literally checked all of the boxes in terms of "will Madie love it?" This love and adoration is objectively not a factor in the show's overall quality but it speaks to the production's ability to understand its audience.
I objectively understand that I was exactly the demographic this show was intended to be presented to, giving it all the correct ingredients for success. Luckily, that is exactly what happened. I loved it. Simply put, the show as a whole was a highlight for me in the packed and truthfully chaotic 2023-2024 season. I would recommend this play, any day. The production team showcased the talents of many Broadway veterans as well as Broadway newcomers and did so in a perfectly splendid comedic farce that is next to impossible to not enjoy, on some level, for each person who comes to see it. The Cottage will likely not change lives but it did put a light into mine and I can only hope audiences adore this work as much as I do.
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