At a Festival of New Plays, Money Makes Two Plots Go Round (Excerpt)

Charles Isherwood

May 6, 2008

But the sour aftertaste left behind by “The Injured Party” was dispelled entirely on Sunday morning, when the festival drew to a close with a reading of Amy Freed’s “You, Nero,” an uproarious comedy set during the declining years of the Roman Empire. Even in a bare-bones staged reading — a format hardly congenial to a broad, bawdy gagfest — Ms. Freed’s play delighted almost from start to finish.

A spoof of theater through the ages — from Sophocles to “A Chorus Line” — “You, Nero” makes lively sport of contemporary American culture, as Ms. Freed imagines the mincing Nero (a magnificent Danny Scheie — but Nathan Lane might want to call his agent now) commissioning an image-primping pageant from a down-on-his-luck dramatist. Nero has banished tragedy, preferring fancy spectacles and saliva-generating gore-fests.

The slams at the puerile appeal of popular movies and television are predictable but still enjoyable, the theatrical in-jokes silly but inspired. Indeed, Ms. Freed’s gloriously funny play is its own argument for the continued viability of an endangered species, the stage comedy. I’m tempted to quote at length, but the play’s delirious charm would surely fizzle in sober newsprint.

For evidence of its irresistible appeal I’ll just report that the audience staggered out into the sunny spring afternoon with stomachs sore from laughter, and that I await a New York production with unusual relish.