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You Never Can Tell
by Martin Denton
NYTheater.com
June 21, 1998
If you enjoy sophisticated comedy, brilliantly played, then you should immediately go to the Laura Pels Theatre and buy tickets to see You Never Can Tell. Nicholas Martin's new production of Shaw's 1897 comedy sparkles with wit, style, and high spirits. Everything about it works beautifully, from the winning performances of its dozen actors, to the handsome and appropriate sets and costumes designed by Allen Moyer and Michael Krass, to the brisk, mood-enhancing music of Mark Bennett. This is theatre at its most sublime.
First, a quick round-up of the plot. Valentine is a handsome, roguish, intelligent ne'er-do-well who is currently working as a dentist in a seaside resort in England. He is visited by Dolly Clandon, a vivacious and insatiably curious young lady who quickly befriends him and immediately thereafter manages to invite him and his next patient, a surly old man called Crampton, to lunch with her family at a nearby hotel. Dolly's family consists of her equally pixilated brother Philip, her captivating older sister Gloria, and their mother, an independent and strong-minded woman who left their father years ago and now makes a career of writing treatises on the impact of the twentieth century on Victorian society. Valentine is immediately smitten with Gloria and spends the remainder of the play scheming to win her hand despite her considerable objections. Crampton, meanwhile, turns out to be the Clandons' long-lost father, and, abetted by a masterful waiter and two nosy solicitors, he manages to make amends with children and wife before the final curtain goes down.
The writing is, well, Shavian, which is to say that it's eloquent and clever, occasionally overbearing, often surprising, and always fascinating. You Never Can Tell is character-driven, and what a bunch of characters they are! Shaw has provided his actors with a veritable gold mine here; happily, the players at the Roundabout make the most of their opportunities.
Take Charles Keating, for example. He plays the waiter, a man at once entirely reasonable and fetchingly whimsical who is both our guide into this cockeyed story and its gentle deus ex machina. In Mr. Keating's hands, he is appealing and memorable and, above all, human; he centers You Never Can Tell even as he wryly expounds its (eponymous) theme.
Saxon Palmer and Catherine Kellner are utterly delightful as the youngest of the Clandons. Their interplay is so well-timed and well-executed that it's hard to believe they're not brother and sister in real life. With their breezy, un-self-conscious ingenuousness, they make Philip and Dolly downright lovable, no mean feat when you consider how easy it would be to make them hatefully precocious.
Jere Shea appears only briefly, near the end of the play, but his cameo is so well-executed that he almost steals the show from his excellent confreres. He plays Buhon (pronounced like "Boone"), a smug, self-absorbed, egotistical lawyer who gets away with his exasperating arrogance because, as he puts it, "my specialty is being right when other people are wrong." Mr. Shea's turn is a miniature masterpiece: watch how he flings himself halfway across the stage onto the top of a short staircase, managing to look like a spoiled child and a haughty aristocrat in the same moment: this is an hilarious performance.
And then there's Robert Sean Leonard, who, incidentally, inspired this particular revival of You Never Can Tell. Mr. Leonard proves once again why he's one of the finest actors of his generation, capturing all of Valentine's insouciance, intelligence, playfulness, and zest for living. In his climactic scene with Gloria, she asks him what gifts he was born with; he replies "lightness of heart," which is precisely what he embodies, effortlessly, throughout the play. Observe his exchanges with Helen Carey (as the formidable Mrs. Clandon), or, especially, his effervescent initial seduction of Gloria: he makes such scenes into gossamer flights of fancy, as baldly charming and joyous as Gene Kelly splashing in a puddle in Singing in the Rain.
That's five superb performances--along with, I should add, seven others that are just as effective though not so flashy--in a serious comedy written by a master at the height of his powers. All that, plus a smashing gown (worn by Ms. Carey) that is so elegantly designed and well-constructed that, for a moment, it almost stops the show itself. There's no doubt in my mind about You Never Can Tell: it's splendid: a fizzy, funny respite from the summer heat.
