Two weeks ago, I saw Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York). Full honesty: I went into it knowing very little about the plot, and wanted to see it mostly because I remember Sam Tutty’s various filmed performances of songs from Dear Evan Hansen when he played the lead role on the West End as well as videos from the West End run of Two Strangers, and I have a well-known catastrophic attraction complex to cute funny redheads. Yes, that’s a pretty superficial reason to see a play. At least I’m honest.
Two Strangers is a two-hander – just two actors, Tutty as Dougal, newly arrived in NYC on his first visit from England to attend the wedding of the father he’s never met, and Christiani Pitts as Robin, the younger sister of the bride tasked with running all the wedding-related errands too menial for the bride and groom, including picking the groom’s son up from LaGuardia airport. Dougal and Robin do not instantly hit it off, and the show is about how they gradually get to know each other while, among other tasks, retrieving the titular cake from Flatbush and getting it back to Manhattan. The play also explores Dougal and Robin’s relationships with their families (his mom and imagined meeting with his father, her grandmother and sister).
Along the way, there are twists and bumps and secrets revealed leading to a cathartic and sweet denouement. Jim Barne and Kit Buchan have written a well-structured show, full of banter and balancing the comedic with the serious. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is the perfect Broadway musical rom-com. It doesn’t take itself too seriously even when dealing with some weighty subjects (none of which I will spoil here). You don’t leave feeling like you’ve been lectured to, but you’ve still learned something about dealing with abandonment and betrayals of trust (whether you are the abandoner or the abandoned, the betrayer or the betrayed). I find myself still thinking about the character arcs two weeks after seeing the show.
I also find myself still thinking about the set design by Soutra Gilmour, which manages to be abstractly concrete … or should it be concretely abstract? The set is basically two giant stacks of luggage, most of which open in various configurations to form bedrooms, coffee shops, hotel rooms, the interior of a rideshare, and the streets of New York. Combined with Jack Knowles’ lighting design the set is as much a character as the characters are.
If you’re on social media at all, you’ve seen clips of the songs “New York,” “This Is The Place,” “About To Go In,” and “American Express.” Barne and Buchan’s songs swing from raucously funny to introspective, all appropriate. It’s not unusual for me to suddenly have snippets of each of the four songs I just mentioned, as well as “This Year” and “If I Believed” dancing around inside my head.
Tutty’s Dougal is adorkable – a movie geek who loves his mother and really just wants to be everyone’s friend, including the father he’s never known. His mannerisms are appropriately exaggerated when he’s excited, but what was really touching was the smaller gestures when Dougal is anxious or a little unsure of his footing. Dougal tries too hard sometimes, but just when that might start to be annoying Tutty pulls it back in and shows why Dougal is trying so hard.
Pitts’ Robin is more guarded, with just enough simmering anger at the start to telegraph that this cool, collected woman has some inner conflict that needs addressing. Pitts spools that out to the audience as much in body language as in the written dialogue throughout act one, and when she explodes in act two, every moment of it is earned and relatable.
When I sat down in the theater and flipped through the Playbill, I realized I actually had seen Christiani Pitts before … in King Kong! This is a very different role in a very different scale production. In Kong, she was overshadowed by the puppet work (which was phenomenal) and not necessarily well-served by the music. Here, she really gets to shine. Her Tony nomination is well-deserved (as is Tutty’s, and the show’s) and honestly, if I was a Tony voter, she’d have my vote. (No, I haven’t seen every Tony-nominated performance from this season’s musicals; I’m confident that she’d get my vote even if I had).
It’s probably obvious from this review that I highly recommend if you’re near New York City you go see Two Strangers at the Longacre Theatre. Of the musicals I’ve seen so far this year, it’s in the top two for me (after The Lost Boys).
I’ve always loved live theater, and in the past couple of years I’ve been making a stronger effort to see more of it. Theater Thursday is an occasional series where I talk about live theater, both shows I’ve seen recently and shows I’ve loved in the past.