An American Daughter opened on Broadway in 1997, a few years after President Clinton’s picks for attorney general, Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood, were withdrawn from nomination over the ridiculous Nannygate scandals. The current revival (its first) shows that, in today’s climate—where Trump has destroyed norms that have obtained for decades—it now seems irrelevant and surprisingly one-dimensional.

 

Wasserstein’s heroine, the accomplished liberal doctor Lyssa Edna Hughes, is in her mid-40s and has been nominated as surgeon general. She’s seen as a safe pick, and she has a solid political pedigree, since her father, Alan Hughes, is a longtime Republican senator who has just married his fourth wife, nicknamed Chubby. Lyssa’s husband Walter is an academic still respected in progressive circles.

 

Several other characters flit in and out. Lyssa’s college friend Judith is a Black Jewish oncologist from Brooklyn desperate to have a baby. Morrow McCarthy, a gay, anti-abortion columnist, is another friend of the couple. Then there’s Quincy Quince, a Gen X feminist whose mentor was Walter and whose quick rise to fame threatens to derail Alyssa and Walter’s own relationship.

 

It’s all melodramatically soapy, especially when rising TV journalist Timber Tucker—during an interview with Alyssa—runs with a tidbit he overhears at a brunch attended by all the characters that the supposedly perfect Lyssa ignored a jury summons, which begins a runaway train that destroys Lyssa’s nomination. 

 

Although the inspired and insightful creator of The Heidi Chronicles and The Sisters Rosensweig is still occasionally present, these characters are not differentiated enough—with names like Chubby, Morrow, Timber and Quincy, one suspects Wasserstein knew this too and hoped the monikers would make them stand out—to be worth spending 2-1/2 hours with, and the surfeit of one-liners (this being Wasserstein, there are many of them, some of them hilarious, others not so) tries to hide the lack of motivation and development.

 

On Broadway 30 years ago, Daniel Sullivan’s slick production and Kate Nelligan’s elegant Lyssa helped smooth over the dramaturgical holes. But the new off-Broadway staging—unevenly directed by Sarna Lapine on Mikiko Suzuki Macadams’ beautifully appointed set of Lyssa and Walter’s Georgetown home—is hampered by slack writing and a mixed bag of acting. 

 

Montego Glover is an adroit Judith, Dakin Matthews has a blast as Alan and Robert Sean Leonard is a capable Walter. On the debit side, Mary Beth Peil (Chubby), Carmen Zilles (Quincy), Ryan Spahn (Morrow) and Chris Gaffhari (Timber) can’t transcend their clever names enough to become individuals, while, most damagingly, Jean Lichty plays Lyssa with an unfortunate somnolence that makes Wasserstein’s heroine disappear into the scenery.