Six Degrees of Separation, written twenty years ago, is John Guare’s award-winning comedy of manners about artful and artless reflections on life as it is, or may be, lived on New York’s Upper East Side. The handsome production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival stars Margaret Colin and Tim Daly and is directed by Anne Kauffman.
Flan and Ouisa are an attractive, middle age couple who “sell art”. More to the point, they work the middle ground between acquisition and distribution of masterpieces. The profit is in buying low and selling high, or at the very least, in buying a work of art and knowing, well in advance, that an eager buyer is already salivating nearby. When we meet the couple, they are hoping to end a very dry period by attracting the interest (and money) of a client whose wealth is tied up in so many ventures that he has no cash on-hand for something as basic as dinner. Ouisa and Flan have much to accomplish, but they are stopped dead in their path when the building’s doorman brings Paul, a young African-American, into their apartment. He has been mugged and has come to this apartment because the couple’s children had previously told him where they lived. Events play out from here through ninety intermissionless minutes, and the central focus moves increasingly to Ouisa, whose ruminations on privilege and complacency inform Guare’s observations about American aspirations. The play advances the argument that the more material we seek, the more we need to keep ourselves satisfied and sated. We are omnivores, all of us – those who have and those who envy and determine to get – and we are doomed to lives of forever wanting what can never feed the soul.
Six Degrees… is not an easy play for most mainstream audiences because it demands careful attention to the ideas expressed (as a comedy of manners, it is entirely about its language and little to do with action) and Guare, as he most often does, requires us to come up to his level, a most wonderful place to be in an age where writers are too often tempted to explain themselves step-by-step. The play is a strong choice by the WTF, too, because it follows a musical romp (A Funny Thing…) and precedes Our Town, a masterpiece, to be sure, but not one that requires the same heavy lifting.
Guare’s play iwell served by this company, especially at the senior end of things. Margaret Colin tosses off one-liners with ease and, seconds later, plumbs the depth of despair and ennui without overstating the point or the emotion. Her Ouisa is savvy enough to know that she pays a price for the life she is living and the choices she has made. Tim Daly balances the wordplay with charm that is a transparent veneer for terror of failure and perhaps greater terror of being caught in his own game. While Daly’s personal warmth and radiant smile occasionally soften the character he plays, the moments late in the play when he demands that his wife dismiss Paul out-of-hand serve to warn us that we, too, can be taken in by a pretty face and a winning laugh.
John Bedford Lloyd, as the wealthy man that the couple have their sights set on, is exactly as smooth and unreadable as the character is meant to be. The opening scene with these three actors is a model of High Comedy with a darker purpose and no hand trying to guide us to the subtext.
My only caveat is that the play, itself, feels out of its time. Set in a world of deep pockets, where Art is a trading commodity and the children of the wealthy can set their own rules and ethical compasses with impunity, the references to popular culture are not yet old enough to be interesting nor current enough to ring true. The play may hit its target at some future date, but for now it is a finely staged treatment of material that doesn’t get under the skin as it must.
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