The holidays aren't over yet at the Hayes Theatre. Playwright Leslye Headland makes her Broadway debut with Cult of Love, directed by Trip Cullman and presented by Second Stage Theatre.
What's it all about? It’s the holiday season for the Dahl family! The four adult children return to their childhood home with partners in tow. The Dahl traditions include singing carols in harmony at the drop of a hat, but the gathering is anything but harmonious.
Old conflicts resurface, new issues battled, and dinner is taking absolutely forever to be served. Will the love the Dahls have for each other be enough to get them through, or will this be their last Christmas together?
Before Broadway, the family dramedy premiered at the IAMA Theatre in Los Angeles as part of their 10th Anniversary season in 2018. It went on to play at the Williamstown Theatre Festival as an audio production, which was presented by Audible. A later version was presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre is 2024, directed by Cullman.
The star-studded Broadway cast includes: Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Barbie Ferreira, Christopher Lowell, Mare Winninham, David Rasche, Molly Bernard, Roberta Colindrez, Rebecca Henderson and Christopher Sears.
Known for the play-turned-movie Bachelorette and the TV series Russian Doll, Headland can take pride in her smarts, sensitivity, and sharp wit. But she juggles too many hot topics – love, religion, homophobia, sibling rivalry, aging parents, mental illness, addiction, dementia, and denial — without tying up the threads. Director Trip Cullman’s fine-tuned ensemble and the ear-tickling musical interludes are saving graces. A last-minute harmonious quartet nearly makes for a happy ending. Only almost, mind you. But it’s quite the theatrical Hail Mary.
Director Trip Cullman orchestrates some nice moments throughout, assisted by the sometimes cinematic lighting by Heather Gilbert in quieter night-time tableaux. But Headland’s writing lets him down in some of the more explosive scenes, where characters devolve into shouting obscenities (“Shut the fuck up!”) rather than arguing in ways that deepen our understanding of these characters or their backstories. We’ve seen reunions like this before, in tighter, better-written shows like Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate. All too often here, though, we’re stuck in an in-between world that neither quite grounded in comedy or tragedy — a liminal space like the wardrobe through which you enter Narnia (a magical land that the Dahl family members invoke more than once).
2024 | Broadway |
Second Stage Theatre Broadway Production Broadway |
Videos