Broadway’s brand new, side-splitting farce is an outrageous tale of sex, betrayal and desire as one woman decides to expose her latest affair to both her husband — and to her lover’s wife. The true meaning of fate and faith, identity and infidelity, love and marriage are all called into question as a surprising and hilarious web of secrets unravels in this ridiculously funny romantic comedy.
For all the recent politicizing of the queer community’s lack of moral decency, The Cottage, which opens at Broadway’s Hayes Theater on July 24, is having a great time with extramarital merriment, heavy drinking, and more cigarette smoking than even the Marlboro Man could endure. Playwright Sandy Rustin (whose stage adaptation of the film Clue is one of the most-produced plays in the U.S., according to her biography) delivers a period farce set in 1923 pastoral England and stars one of the early aughts’ most famous gay-for-pay actors, Eric McCormack. Jason Alexander, who played the famously neurotic George Costanza on Seinfeld for nine seasons, directs a seasoned cast that climbs an uphill battle to excavate witty banter from a predictable plot that rarely stays ahead of the audience.
I suppose it’s when we least expect them that feelings hit the hardest, so a bedroom farce in the style of Noël Coward becomes a likely candidate for a brief, biting moment of meditation on true, disinterested love. Sandy Rustin’s The Cottage, which has been making its rounds through regional theatres before landing at Broadway’s Hayes Theatre, is a well-crafted comedy with simple, sturdy laughs. Directed by Jason Alexander and set in the 1923 British countryside, it often feels like the ‘90s sitcom, or 2010s prestige, version of that—if Coward oversaw the unlikely consummation of Seinfeld and Downton Abbey. The laughs are there, thanks to a comedically fine-tuned cast, but, befitting a bed-hopping plot, a tender, surprising altruism keeps them on your face.
Digital Rush
Price: $39
Where: On the Today Tix app.
When: Released on a first-come, first-served basis every performance day at 9 AM.
Limit: Two per customer
Information: Subject to availability.
2023 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Costume Design (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Sydney Maresca |
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Play | Alex Moffat |
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Scenic Design (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Paul Tate DePoo III |
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