Important Hats of the Twentieth Century
Opening Night: November 23, 2015
Closing: December 13, 2015
Theater: MTC
“Important Hats of the Twentieth Century” spins the rip-roaring tale of Sam Greevy, the hottest fashion designer in 1930’s New York… that is, until rival Paul Roms starts releasing strange but popular pieces like “sweatshirts,” “tracksuits” and “skater pants.” When Greevy’s minions break into Roms’s shady operation, they make a startling discovery that could explain from where – or should we say from when? – these avant-garde ensembles are coming. Soon, this rivalry turns into a battle for the very future of humankind, and more importantly, fashion!
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November 23, 2015
Milliners — all 12 of you still practicing that noble craft — should not get too excited about “Important Hats of the Twentieth Century,” a new comedy by Nick Jones that opened on Monday at City Center in a Manhattan Theater Club production. A parade of historic headgear does not feature in Mr. Jones’s frothy but chiffon-thin play about rivalrous fashion designers, semi-mad scientists and time travel. Mr. Jones’s woolly fantasy, set mostly in 1937, with frequent flights to 1998, begins like a film noir, with a reporter arriving at the scene of a crime. T. B. Doyle, played with funny, square-jawed seriousness by John Behlmann, is interrogating a police officer about a break-in at the laboratory of the “brilliant overweight scientist” Dr. Cromwell (Remy Auberjonois). The cop seems a bit vague about the device purloined and the supposedly grave implications of its theft (“You know these scientists — they think the whole world revolves around science — ha!”), but he’s quite taken with Doyle’s hat, which he finds quite “chic.” We are clearly in fantasyland when beat cops are tossing around lingo like that in 1937.
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