Adapted by: Terry Johnson
At: The Shubert Theatre, 22 W. Monroe
Phone: (312) 902-1400; $20-$70
Runs through: March 14
If there were ever a reason to stop the theatrical madness of extorting cultural touchstones to cash in on their pedigrees that reason would be The Graduate. Now on gaudy display at the Shubert, this staged adaptation of the phenomenal book by Charles Webb and seminal film by Mike Nichols, exemplifies everything that's wrong with big-time theater today: a paucity of imagination driven by the desire to cash in on marquee value, both from the proven success of its predecessor and through stunt casting.
When Charles Webb published The Graduate in 1963, he was roughly the same age as his main character, the lost and yearning Benjamin Braddock, who, just after graduation from a posh Eastern school, begins questioning his comfortable middle-class surroundings, finding them inexplicably 'grotesque.' The book was prescient, poised on the brink of a seismic shift in culture and generational priorities. Several years later, when Mike Nichols faithfully adapted Webb's book into a groundbreaking film, he had the advantage of being able to reap the fruit of Webb's prescience: the Vietnam war was in full swing, and the youth culture had become what Webb's characters were just beginning to awaken to. The Graduate, in both print and celluloid versions, bore testimony to an evolutionary leap in society. Its story of Braddock's affair with Mrs. Robinson, one of his parents' best friends, and his eventual throwing her over for Elaine, the Robinson's daughter, is the stuff of Greek tragedy and soap opera. Its plot arc was secondary, though, to its shrewd depiction of growing up, both personally and on a much larger scale.
Now comes this woefully misbegotten stage version, whose sole raison d'etre is to make money. The irony here is that the reasons for creating this show were the very reasons Benjamin and Elaine were so dissatisfied with their status quo. Perhaps if Terry Johnson's clueless adaptation had had a whit of respect or understanding of its source material, it might have fared better, but Johnson and director Peter Lawrence have opted to strip The Graduate of its societal and cultural touchstones and go instead for crass belly laughs. From Lorraine Bracco's one-note performance as Mrs. Robertson (she seemed to be channeling Foster Brooks) to eye-rolling attempts at humor like having Mrs. Robinson's head bobbing up and down under a sheet in Benjamin's lap, to stripping the story of its logic (we never see why Benjamin and Elaine fall in love, nor do we even see any real reference to time and place), this play, well, stinks.
If you're a fan of the movie, don't ruin your association by seeing The Graduate on stage. Remember the tigress that Anne Bancroft made Mrs. Robinson: that sexy, sultry bitch who underneath it all was just a sad, love-starved woman? She's gone. Lorraine Bracco makes her into a pedestrian drunk. Her performance—and the script—strips away our fascination with a truly remarkable character. And don't even get me started on what they've done to the classic movie ending that's one of the most iconic moments ever put on film. Let's just say Fruit Loops, a motel room, and two naïve kids are a poor substitute.
The staged Graduate's literary and cinematic predecessors worked because of their passion to portray something important and real. The staged Graduate makes me passionate, too: please don't add one more penny to the producers' coffers by buying a ticket to this inane fouling of a truly original piece of art.