Summer, 1976
Opening Night: April 25, 2023
Theater: Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Website: www.manhattantheatreclub.com
Summer, 1976 is a deeply moving, tenderly insightful new play about friendship, memory, and the small moments that can change the course of our lives forever. Over one fateful summer, an unlikely friendship develops between Diana, a fiercely iconoclastic artist and single mom, and Alice, a free-spirited yet naive young housewife. As the Bicentennial is celebrated across the country, these two young women in Ohio navigate motherhood, ambition, and intimacy, and help each other discover their own independence.
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April 25, 2023
On John Lee Beatty’s lyrically midcentury modern set, summer-lit by Japhy Weideman at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, the two women get the munchies and have a feast. Nearly by chance, a life-changing friendship takes root.
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April 25, 2023
Unfortunately, however, the end of that pre-show playlist is just about where the feel-goods of “Summer, 1976” end. The remaining 90 minutes of David Auburn’s eventless play bargains on feverish nostalgia and a paper-thin portrayal of friendship to emulate the shifts, bends and breaks of relationships between women.
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April 25, 2023
The production reunites director Daniel Sullivan with playwright David Auburn, who wrote the company’s 2000 hit Proof, and with the very fine actor Laura Linney, whom he has directed in four previous MTC shows on Broadway; joining them is stage treasure Jessica Hecht, of MTC’s The Assembled Parties. It’s a dramatic dream team; what’s missing is drama.
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April 25, 2023
Starring Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht – both outstanding – Summer, 1976, a Manhattan Theatre Club production opening tonight at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, recounts a long-ago friendship that, on the surface, doesn’t seem particularly unusual or outwardly impactful.
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April 25, 2023
But Linney and Hecht’s confident, vulnerable-lite performances are the reasons to come, and the two stage veterans embrace the audience with their affable warmth and charm.
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April 25, 2023
As temperatures warm up, and our temperaments improve, there is something so soothing about spending an afternoon on a sun-bathed, screened-in porch with two fabulous actresses. And that is what David Auburn’s Broadway play “Summer, 1976,” which opened Tuesday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, generously provides — featuring the indomitable Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht.
READ THE REVIEWApril 25, 2023
Not incidentally, Mr. Auburn’s play gives Ms. Linney and Ms. Hecht—two of our finest stage actors—an opportunity to display, without a moment of histrionics, or even conventionally structured drama, their admirably honed gifts.
READ THE REVIEWApril 25, 2023
Under the direction of Daniel Sullivan, Linney and Hecht deliver commanding performances in sharply different ways. Linney exudes steely confidence with a dash of haughty arrogance as Diana — perhaps masking insecurities over the humble trajectory of her own career. Meanwhile, Hecht’s wide smile and easy-breezy tone disguise issues at home that Annie may not have the strength to acknowledge.
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April 25, 2023
Linney and Hecht are excellent and generous scene partners, and though Summer, 1976 has none of the explosive bells and whistles of some of its Broadway compadres, it has its own gentle, unassuming power.
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April 25, 2023
Friendships are, without a doubt, some of the most complicated relationships we can have, though there’s far less art made about them than familial, romantic, and sexual ones. David Auburn’s new Broadway play, Summer, 1976 at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, is filling in this gap, and may very well be one of the best pieces of art about female friendship yet.
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April 25, 2023
The key pleasure of Summer, 1976 comes from listening to Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht talk. The two of them — how haven’t they worked alongside each other before? — have distinct instruments and know how to deploy them so well. Linney’s got an assertive alto, while Hecht’s timbre is reedier and more winding, a viola and oboe. I’d happily see them take on any number of double-act parts (Hecht’s Glinda to Linney’s Elphaba?), but in David Auburn’s gentle but wise play, they’ve found a piece of finely wrought chamber music on which they can duet with precision.
READ THE REVIEWApril 25, 2023
And when you have actors of the quality and appeal of Laura Linney (”Ozark,” of late) and Jessica Hecht (”Breaking Bad”), the two stars of David Auburn’s subtle “Summer, 1976,” an intimate chance to visit with them can be reason enough to buy a ticket.
READ THE REVIEWApril 25, 2023
Opposites attract – and not only when it comes to romance, but friendships as well. That’s the thesis of Summer, 1976, a pleasant wisp of a play with an A-list pedigree that has all the dramatic heft of catching a few rays.
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