The Country House sounds as generic as its title: this is a play about actors who converge on the Berkshires each summer to perform at the Williamstown Theater Festival. The central character, matriarch Anna Patterson, is the grand dame of Williamstown, and holds forth in the house, which she and her late husband have owned for decades, for the first time since the death of her beloved daughter Kathy. (The play is dedicated to actress Dana Reeve, who died in 2006 of lung cancer.)

 

Staying with Anna are her granddaughter, level-headed college student Susie; her son, perennially auditioning actor and budding playwright Eliot; Susie's father (and Kathy's widower), famous movie director Walter Keegan, who arrives with his new (much younger) girlfriend Nell; and superstar hunk (and beloved TV doctor) Michael Astor, in town to return to his stage roots for the summer, and invited by Anna—who met him at the local supermarket—to crash at their house while his own sublet is being fumigated.

 

So Margulies sets up a tragicomic Chekhovian journey, with readily identifiable characters sketched in short of outright caricature. That Anna is played by the luminous Blythe Danner—herself a big Williamstown presence for many years—is one of the play's many in-jokes. But Margulies also piles up contrivances more than is warranted for a playwright of his stature, even if it must be admitted that the gimmicky situations and relationships are so well written scene to scene that they never fatally compromise the play, only make it teeter on a weakened foundation.

 

It's no surprise that we discover that Nell had a short fling with Eliot years before, and that he still pines for her; or that Eliot has written a nakedly autobiographical play that the households reads through; or that Anna all but ignored her son Eliot while putting her darling daughter Kathy on a pedestal; or that Susie's had a crush on family friend Michael since she was a toddler; or that Nell and Michael are intensely attracted to each other. That last leads to the play's biggest contrivance, which makes for a pre-intermission surprise: but it's so well prepared for by Margulies' crafty writing, the cast's excellent acting and Daniel Sullivan's artful direction that it works, at least at that very moment. Just don't think about it too much.

 

The Country House works like a perfectly oiled machine, which is the problem. As resourceful a writer as Margulies is; as forceful and funny as his jabs at theater, movies and TV are; as dexterously knitted together as is the superb cast of six—with special mention to David Rasche for his blustery but droll Walter, a once-hailed director reduced to making movies for 15 year old boys; as well-paced as Daniel Sullivan's direction is on John Lee Beatty's meticulously detailed set, The Country House is ultimately less than the sum of its many proficient parts.

 

The Country House

Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th Street, New York, NY

manhattantheatreclub.org

This massive set is the Holy Grail for Wonder Years fans: every episode of the beloved half-hour show, on ABC from 1988 to 1994—that's 115 episodes in all—are housed on  26 discs, so the entire dramatic and comedic arc of this wise and wonderful character study of young baby boomer kids growing up and going to school in the volatile Vietnam era can be enjoyed and savored. There's superlative acting by Fred Savage, Danica McKellar, Olivia d'Abo, Alley Miles and Dan Lauria, while narrator Daniel Stern provides the precise tone of wistful looking back. 

 

Inside a metal locker, the discs fit into two school binders, and there are also booklets and photographs; voluminous extras include commentaries, interviews and featurettes. (One complaint: the discs slide into the binders' pages very tightly, so be careful when pulling them out—several of mine were scratched.) 

 

Finally, the reason this set took so long to arrive on DVD—getting clearances for 285 popular songs from the era—is one of its most salient features: there are classics by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bob Dylan, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder and even Joe Cocker, whose brilliant cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" is the series' perfect title theme.  

 

Blu-rays of the Week

The third film in a trilogy about handsome writer Xavier and his relationships with women—after L'Auberge espagnole and Russian Dolls—is the kind of movie that director Cedric Klapisch could make in his sleep: that's not necessarily a criticism, since no one makes such slick, charming but ultimately paper-thin comedies of manners as Klapisch. 

 

His cast is uniformly strong—with Romain Duras, Audrey Tautou, Kelly Reilly and Cecile de France are at their charismatic best—and there are amusing explorations of New York City through the eyes of Frenchman Xavier, but at two hours, Klpaisch ends up repeating himself. The hi-def image looks first rate; a nice complement of extras comprises 35 minutes of interviews and a 50-minute making-of.

 

 

 

Million Dollar Arm 

In this entertaining sports picture based on a true story, Jon Hamm plays a sports agent at the end of his professional rope who decides to go to India and find a new pitcher that could crash the majors—and, of course, he does! (Not one, but two, actually: both pitchers are in the Pittsburgh Pirates organziation now.) 

 

This agreeable movie could lose 10-15 minutes with no loss of effectiveness, but Hamm is charming, Lake Bell wonderfully eccentric as his love interest, and the Indian cricket backdrop is nicely rendered. The Blu-ray looks excellent; extras include an alternate ending, deleted scenes, outtakes and featurettes.

 

Persecuted 

One of the weirdest entries in the bizarro world of conservative filmmaking is this straw-man entry about a world in which religious liberty gives way to a new law forcing all religions to give others equal time, and a famous preacher finds himself facing a trumped-up murder charge when he doesn't go along with a powerful senator who sponsored the legislation. This screed isn't even inept enough to be mocked mercilessly; rather, it's just humorless, strident and boring. 

 

Any movie in which Fox News' bubbleheaded bleach blonde Gretchen Carlson gives the most persuasive performance is seriously lacking in every way. The movie does looks good on Blu; extras (only on the DVD version, for some reason) are a commentary, featurette and interviews.

 

 

 

Sharknado 2—The Second One 

Of course, the sequel to a cheesy movie about a hurricane-like storm that rains down killer sharks on an unsuspecting populace would have to be even cheesier and more addle-brained than the original: that said, there's some ludicrously guilty fun to be had, especially the cheerfully idiotic scenes of the Statue of Liberty's severed head rolling down a Manhattan street or sharks chewing up subway riders after a Mets game. 

 

It's nice to see that Viveca Fox and especially Kari Wuhrer still look smashing, but garbage is garbage, even if it doesn't pretend to be anything else. The Blu-ray looks great; a plethora of extras comprises featurettes, deleted scenes, a gag reel and commentaries.

 

DVDs of the Week

In this timely, sadly relevant eight-part mini-series, Maggie Gyllenhaal is fantastically understated as an Anglo-Israeli entrepreneur trying to secure Middle East peace who finds herself caught in a controlling system (led by American and English spy services) that would prefer to keep the warring factions in place. 

 

Creator-director Hugo Blick's scripting sometimes lacks nuance, but a top supporting cast led by Andrew Buchan, Stephen Rea, Janet McTeer and Lindsay Duncan provides the shades of grey necessary to keep this fast-moving thriller going. Lone extra is a making-of featurette.

 

 

 

To Be Takei 

Star Trek's Sulu, George Takei, turned himself into a remarkably durable celebrity in the 40-plus years since the beloved sci-fi series ended by becoming one of the most inspiring and witty voices for gay rights: hell, even Howard Stern is on his side. 

 

Jennifer M. Kroot's concise documentary follows Takei from his childhood in a WWII Japanese-American internment camp with his family to his early acting days to his breaking down barriers for both Asian and gay actors, all with his trademark grin and extremely likeable personality kept front and center. Lone extras are deleted scenes.

 

Two and a Half Men—Complete 11th Season

The appearance of Amber Tamblyn as the Jon Cryer character's niece isn't enough to brighten Two and a Half Men's 11th season; on the contrary, the whole charade smacks of desperation on the part of a sitcom that's been running on fumes since Charlie Sheen left—that this new season is to be its last is certainly no surprise. 

 

On the other hand, the third season of 2 Broke Girls continues a smutty but funny winning streak thanks to the comic chemistry of its stars, Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings, the latter of whom has a way with snarky remarks that are second to none. The lone Men extra is a gag reel; Girls has a gag reel and deleted scenes.

 

 

 

Venus in Fur 

David Ives’ witty play is turned by Roman Polanski into an exhilarating romp in many ways superior to what was onstage in New York in 2011. Set in an empty theater, this two-hander features Mathieu Amalric as a playwright-director who auditions Emmanuelle Seigner (real-life Mrs. Polanski) for the sizzling lead role in his new play. 

 

Though too old, Seigner gleefully throws herself into it with abandon as her husband lustfully photographs her from all angles; Amalric holds his own by keeping out of Seigner’s way. Unlike Carnage, his stillborn God of Carnage adaptation, Polanski never allows staginess and talkiness to bog down Venus. Extras are interviews with Polanski, Seigner and Amalric; but why, in 2014, is a film by one of our major directors not on Blu-ray?

 

Witching and Bitching 

The latest effort by off-kilter Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia is an unsavory brew that mixes a bungled heist, one of the robber's young son who's an accomplice, the boy's understandably upset mother, and a trio of witches—grandmother, mother, daughter—whose house the crooks stumble upon. 

 

For nearly two hours, we are subjected to de la Iglesia's usual stew of cheap jokes, cartoonish gore and ridiculous campiness (a deformed female monster appears); how the director got one of Spanish cinema's grand dames, Carmen Maura, to be in this farrago is anyone's guess. Extras are three short featurettes.

Written by Tom Stoppard; directed by Carey Perloff

Performances through November 30, 2014

 

Tom Stoppard's 1995 drama Indian Ink, which runs along parallel story paths like his 1993 masterpiece Arcadia and his 1997 play about poet A.E. Housman, The Invention of Love, toggles between Flora Crewe, a British poetess visiting India in the 1930s, and Eleanor, Flora's now-elderly younger sister, trying to fend off an American scholar from piecing together, 50 years later, the poetess's mysterious and short life.

 

Flora, one of Stoppard's most elegant creations, is an attractive, vivacious, free-spirited young woman who arrives in India to find a more agreeable climate to ward off her tuberculosis (which ends up killing her): her natural curiosity and bewitching personality make her irresistible to the men whom she meets, like Indian painter Nirad Das (for whom she poses nude) and British envoy David Durnance (with whom she flirts good-naturedly). 

 

Flora narrates her own Indian adventures through the letters she sends home to Eleanor, whom we see half a century later giving some of them to Eldon Pike, an odious American academic writing a book about Flora who is searching for her correspondence. The letters are written in a way that allows someone like Eldon to misinterpret the events and relationships they cover: Eleanor doesn't bother correcting his misapprehensions, which parallel how the British acted while colonizing India for centuries.

 

Although at times it feels as if Stoppard is deliberately withholding pertinent information—unlike so many of his other plays, which practically show off their erudition, crammed to the gills as they are with cultural bric-a-brac—Indian Ink is, for the most part, a stimulating journey into Western and Eastern art and history. 

 

Director Carey Perloff, who knows the play intimately (she helmed its 1999 U.S. premiere in San Francisco), provides shimmering stage imagery as both stories play out near-simultaneously on a mostly empty set that's little more than a blue background. But Neil Patel's set becomes less impoverished when complemented by Robert Weirzel's expressive lighting and Candice Donnelly's snazzy period costumes.

 

As Eleanor, the legendary Rosemary Harris has a formidable presence, while the men in the sisters' lives—Nirad, David, Eldon and Nirad's son Anish, who talks with Eleanor about his father's relationship with her sister—are sketched decently by Firmas Bjandi, Lee Aaron Rosen, Neal Huff and Bhavesh Patel. 

 

Then there's Romola Garai, who gives a wonderfully realized performance that vividly embodies the manifold aspects of Flora—her intense intellect, psychological makeup, curiosity and sexuality—painting a three-dimensional portrait far richer than the pictures of her Eldon fruitlessly searches for. 

 

Laura pels Theatre, 111 West 46th Street, New York, NY

roundabouttheatre.org