A CurtainUp Review It Has to Be You

If by now you don’t know the dangers of poking your nose into other people’s business, It Has to Be You will clue you in. The warning probably applies especially to relatives. That is how Catherine Butterfield’s new comedy, It Has to Be You at the Abingdon Theatre sees it. Directed by Stuart Ross, this upbeat work skims along with witty lightness over a thoughtful undertone. It speaks to the “sandwich generation,” the in-between group with elderly parents on one side and children to support on the other. Peggy J. Scott plays a 75-year-old upper-middle class widow living in a spacious home in Massachusetts. Butterfield, besides writing the play, plays her daughter Mindy. It seems that all three of her well-meaning adult children have heard talk about their mother’s recent dubious behavior, namely dancing nude on the balcony. Frank (Adam Ferrara) set off to explore the situation and their younger brother, Jed (Jeffrey C. Hawkins), a busy Hollywood film scenic designer, promises to join them. Mindy and Frank find their mother even more eccentric than usual. She is getting ready to take a daily 3pm photograph of herself, to be part of a collection for her future show called, “Me at Three.”