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George Street Playhouse is webcasting “It’s Only a Play,” Terrence McNally’s seven-actor farce about what happens at the party immediately following the Broadway premiere of a play that turns out to be awful in every conceivable way (though the particulars of its awfulness are shrewdly left to us to imagine). First performed in 1982, “It’s Only a Play” finally made it to Broadway in 2014 in a revival starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick that ran for 274 performances. It was, needless to say, Messrs. Lane and Broderick who filled the seats, but I’ve since reviewed a 2016 staging by Florida’s GableStage that proved that McNally’s play needs no stars to shine.
This production, directed by Kevin Cahoon and taped to broadcast-quality standards in an empty theater at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, is as delightful as its predecessors. Not only are Mr. Cahoon’s staging and the cinematography and editing of Michael Boylan exemplary, but every other element of this production is first-class, including the cast, all of whose members take care of comic business with contagious zest….
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Read the whole thing here.