Becky Shaw feels like a throwback. Of course it is, in the literal sense: Gina Gionfriddo’s
comedy of (bad) manners debuted Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theater in 2008, and was a
Pulitzer Prize finalist the following year. Now ensconced on Broadway at the Hayes Theatre,
Second Stage again hosts the play’s Main Stem premiere, directed by Trip Cullman.

But there are other ways that this crackling comedy already feels like a classic, despite its
relatively young age. For one thing, Gionfriddo seems unafraid to craft characters who garner
little sympathy for the audience. Think about it: how often, in our age of performative empathy,
do we encounter portrayals of people who are openly hateful? Even the waifish title character,
played here by Madeline Brewer in a game Broadway debut, proves difficult to love.

Gionfriddo goes back even further, in some ways, to the days of the Victorian melodrama,
where aristocratic families who found themselves on the brink of poverty would do anything to
maintain their social standing. At the performance I attended, someone in the row behind me
kept accidentally referring to the play as “Becky Sharp” – the heroine of William Makepeace
Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair – and the misidentification is certainly apt.

Becky Shaw is social satire for the post-millennial age. The rich clan on the brink? Check.
Suzanna (Lauren Patten), a flighty doctoral student, and her haughty mother Susan (Linda
Emond) find themselves in precarious straits after the death of their patriarch, whose business
deals were dubious. In true Victorian fashion, they’re even saved by an orphan interloper: the
financially gifted Max (Alden Ehrenreich), a de facto adoptee whose relentless quest for money
has made him successful, sarcastic, and hard.

Max forms a toxic bond with Becky, another tragic figure, who’s a co-worker of the man that
Suzanna impulsively marries in her state of grief (Andrew, played by Patrick Ball of The Pitt).
The interactions between Ehrenreich and Brewer crackle with dynamic energy, and although
Becky initially comes across as pathetic, the gradual dawning of her real power is expertly
revealed in Gionfriddo’s script.

You’d be hard pressed to find a better time at a Broadway play this season – or to feel as bad
about yourself for laughing at the dark side of human nature. The acting in Cullman’s production
is uniformly superb, although Ehrenreich distinguishes himself in a role that could easily be
played as a hateful stereotype. It’s one of the strongest Broadway debuts in recent memory.
Cullman and Gionfriddo retain the play’s original 2008 setting, which designers David Zinn
(sets) and Kaye Voyce (costumes) suggest through subtle touches: flip phones, dated furniture,
and period-specific references. Another throwback. Here’s hoping this excellent production
reintroduces the caustic comedy as a viable Broadway genre.

Photos by Marc J. Franklin