The American Plan
Opening Night: January 22, 2009
Closing: March 22, 2009
Theater: Samuel J. Friedman
In the early ’60s, Lili Adler and her mother Eva spend the summer across the lake from a bustling hotel in the Catskills. When a handsome young man enters their world, the emotionally fragile Lili finds herself falling in love. As her imperious mother learns of their relationship, Lili’s chance to escape Eva’s control may be lost forever.
READ THE REVIEWS:
January 23, 2009
Fear itself is something to fear in “The American Plan” by Richard Greenberg, an elegant and incisive 1990 play that has been given the revival it deserves by the Manhattan Theater Club. In David Grindley’s subtle yet shimmeringly clear production, which opened Thursday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, a scared wariness defines and confines the existences of people in retreat or out for conquest at a Catskills resort in 1960.
READ THE REVIEWApril 22, 2014
The rude yet benign, wicked yet sweet musical, which opened last night at the Golden Theatre, is virtually the same clean little raunchy puppet show that already captured the downtown hearts of 20-somethings, slackers, would-be slackers and the parents who love them. To our nervous system, the extended two-hour sketch would be sharper if trimmed to a tight 90 minutes without an intermission.
READ THE REVIEWApril 22, 2014
At the dawn of the 1960s, a girl on the cusp of womanhood finds romance in the Catskills with a handsome stranger.
READ THE REVIEW
April 22, 2014
The simple, sturdy wood frame around Jonathan Fensom’s set for "The American Plan" looks like it might belong on a Norman Rockwell painting. But in Richard Greenberg’s quietly melancholy 1990 play, receiving a delicate revival on Broadway from the Manhattan Theater Club, that standardized perception of American life turns out to be an uncomfortable trap for all five characters. Regardless of the lengths to which they are willing to go to secure their happiness, these are lives cramped by denial, defeat, compromise, lies and fabrications — which is not to say this is a gloomy piece of theater.
READ THE REVIEW
April 22, 2014
Fifty years ago, “The American Plan” referred to an all-meals-inclusive package at summer resorts in the Catskills. Though Richard Greenberg’s 1990 drama takes place right outside such a resort in 1960, its title is really meant to refer to his characters’ desire to fit into American society despite cultural differences.
READ THE REVIEW