Seminar Review: Are the Best Writing Teachers Abusive?

In “Seminar,” Alan Rickman, though no longer Severus Snape (his role in all eight Harry Potter films), plays a character with striking similarities: Leonard starts off evil, ends up complicated. He even teaches one of the dark arts: writing.

Are the best writing teachers the most abusive? That is what Theresa Rebeck seems to be trying to figure out in her new comedy, her second Broadway show (her first was “Mauritius” in 2007), which has now opened at the Golden. “Seminar” is clearly inspired by such larger-than-life instructors of the written word as Gordon Lish and Robert McKee — and the lesser-known David Milch, who was Rebeck’s boss on the TV series “NYPD Blue” (and happened to have been one of my writing teachers, after which I swore off writing for good.) But is the play criticizing, parodying, or paying homage to them? It seems to be trying to do a combination of the three.

“I think it’s good, in a whorish way,” Leonard critiques a story by Douglas (Jerry O’Connell), one of four fiction writers in their twenties who have each paid $5,000 to take a 10-week course with the legendary author and editor. Leonard’s comment towards Douglas is one of the more positive. His foul-mouthed denunciation of the story by Kate (Lily Rabe) stings her all the more not only because she has been working on the story for six years (she started as an undergraduate at Bennington), but because the class is being conducted in her Upper West Side apartment. It is a rental apartment that has been in the family for a few generations, and her classmates are shocked to learn that, though it has nine rooms with a view of the river, the rent is only $800.

Martin (Hamish Linklater), her classmate for this course and friend since high school, starts calling it a “free apartment” and — facing eviction from his overpriced digs in Queens — eventually asks her whether he can move in.
In “Seminar,” as it turns out, we learn little about teaching, and even less about writing, despite the frequent mentions of Jack Kerouac and Jane Austen and the Yaddo writing colony. The audience never hears any of the stories; we watch while the teacher reads (or, actually, just glances at) loose sheets of paper. What advice is uttered is vague or cryptic, unlikely to reward any aspiring writers in the audience, though the politics of publishing might get a laugh of recognition. The focus is on the dynamics of the individuals in the class (including the teacher) — the ambition and self-centeredness and insecurity, the envy and attraction, the longings and frustrations, and the desire for sex and for fame, which seem intertwined:

In the first scene, Izzy (Hettienne Park) bares her breasts, and leaves them bared for a remarkably long time, as she explains that she is going to pose bare-breasted on the cover of her first book, and thereby get written about in New York Magazine.

“There’s a career goal: Show your tits to New York Magazine,” Kate says.

“It’s ironic and witty,” Izzy replies. “I’m going to be famous.”

Later, Leonard reads two pages of a story by Izzy (the audience waits while he reads to himself), and is impressed: “This has a sound. It rings like a bell. It doesn’t matter that there’s no subject or story or idea or meaning. It’s got power. It’s got sex.”

That kind of backhanded compliment — or supportive insult — is the heart of the humor involving Leonard. But couldn’t he say the same thing of “Seminar”? There is not much of a story, other than our shifting knowledge and perceptions of the characters. But there is power in the acting. Alan Rickman is worth seeing in anything, but the focus here is not exclusively on the teacher. This is an ensemble piece, an obvious specialty of director Sam Gold (who most notably directed Annie Baker’s wonderful “Circle Mirror Transformation” at Playwrights Horizons) who is, amazingly, making his Broadway debut. Lily Rabe already won a following as Portia in last year’s Merchant of Venice, but the other three cast members are making impressive Broadway debuts, especially Hamish Linklater, who changes from a nebbish to a stud to a jerk to a hopeful human being before our eyes.

There is also sex, but it is off-stage, with some coupling combinations that are not believable to the distinctive characters we have come to know.

“Seminar” marks Alan Rickman’s return to Broadway for the third time, the first since “Private Lives” in 2002 (now getting yet another Broadway revival.) For some, he will be sound enough reason to see it.

For New York theater news, views and reviews, follow Jonathan Mandell on Twitter at @NewYorkTheater

Seminar
Golden Theater
By Theresa Rebeck
Directed by Sam Gold
Scenic and costume design by David Zinn, lighting design by BenStanton, original music and sound design by John Gromada
Cast: Alan Rickman (Leonard), Lily Rabe (Kate), Hamish Linklater (Martin), Jerry O’Connell (Douglas), Hettienne Park (Izzy)
Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission