If Kevin Kline developed a half-hour series in which he came on stage and cycled through a series of expressions from the sublime to the ridiculous while ambling wordlessly or with intermittent mutterings stage left and stage right in no predictable pattern, I’d have my credit card out of my wallet ready to binge-watch the entire season before I hit my easy chair.
Mr. Kline, in my estimation one of the great and most watchable actors of our time, recently joined fellow actor Laura Linney, no slouch in the watchable department herself, in lead roles for the eight-part series, “American Classic.”
The more or less half-hour segments debuted in early March and completed their run last month on the MGM+ platform, which is obscure but available for eight bucks via Amazon Prime, Apple TV and various other streaming services you may or may not even be aware you are already paying for in this world of Choice Run Amok.
And since it’s easy to spend that much just on the gratuity for a casual lunch these days, I’m here to tell you it will be the best $8 you’ll spend anytime soon.
Kline plays Richard Bean, a troubled, hard-drinking Shakespearan actor forced by his agent to flee New York after an unseemly meltdown berating a “New York Times” drama critic in a restaurant as other patrons’ cell phones are dutifully set on video. The critic had panned his rendition of “King Lear,” and Bean has overdone the martinis while sitting alone at the bar after what he himself knows—but is not ready to admit—was a dismal performance in a downward spiraling career.
The resultant scandal sends him into hibernation in his hometown, the mythical Millersburg, Pennsylvania, for some much-needed R&R. There he joins his brother, sister-in-law (Linney), their high-school age daughter, and his elderly, dementia-stricken father, who founded the Millersburg Community Theater a couple of generations ago but now passes his days speaking of his recently deceased wife in the present tense, thinking she’s over in the next room and will pop her head in the door any moment.
Meanwhile, Linney’s character and her husband have been forced over the years to turn their playhouse into a dinner theater for touring companies to trot out cheap and over-the-top jokes while distracted patrons mostly drink and eat and make too much noise yukking it up with their tablemates.
And yes, here comes the Prodigal Son, gone to the Big Show decades ago but never forgotten, fallen on hard times himself, sorely needing and perhaps even capable of redemption.
If that seems a too-predictable premise and insufficient balm for this Age of Anxiety, all I can say is maybe to the first part of that sentence and a resounding No! to any hint of insufficiency for a series that almost overflows with charm, wit, and anxious, suspenseful moments (especially at each segment’s end).
Let’s get the lay of the land here before just a few more tidbits to get you heading for your remote.
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Among other estimable qualities, “American Classic” stands as a lovely homage to community theater, where most every actor with their eyes on the craft becoming a profession gets their start. It is also where those who go on to commercial success in larger venues will point back to as a repository of great talent that for one reason or other, much of it having to do with luck, never took the leap to bigger stages.
A narcissist to his very bones, Richard Bean, divorced and married only to his self-image, does not make a rapid readjustment to the cares of small town life and the theater’s role in sustaining it. He left Millersburg body and soul decades ago and has gone years in between visits.
But various circumstances, among them a wily developer offering the town and its theater salvation-by-casino and his family’s sometimes fierce insistence that Bean look beyond his own nose, force a reckoning with who he has allowed himself to become. And also to what he might yet be able to accomplish on behalf of the town, its orphaned theater, and ultimately, the restoration of his own humanity.
Bean sets about that task with the noble goal of reviving the theater’s old glory and identity by vowing to launch a new, modernized production of Thornton Wilder’s somewhat moldy but genuinely homespun American Classic, “Our Town.” Conflicts and challenges ensue, as they do in every town, with that goal of a “modernized” production taking a particularly egregious hit.
No matter, though. Community theater is nothing if not heavily improvisational, budgets and day jobs of its actors being what they are.
“American Classic” excels at underscoring the push and pull of ethical pickles and the everyday dramas and identity struggles that beset every human being who possesses even a flicker of internal life. Each of its characters, every one of them fleshed out and easily cared about in their moments on one or the other stage of this gentle comedy and character study, sometimes wobble unsteadily among the minefields life lays down along their paths, from which they are occasionally forced to take cover.
But good intentions and basic generosity of the heart most always win out, especially when accompanied by a dogged devotion to humor and the celebration of small triumphs that add up— line by line, rehearsal by rehearsal, performance by performance—to days in the theater and life, well-played.
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See if this doesn’t give you chills by the time this young man goes the distance….
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Cast photo from series promotional materials
This is my $8 dilemma. Do I watch American Classic or hit Amazon with a list of possible $8 or less alternatives? It’s a tough choice. Amazon (free delivery being a Prime member) offers a milk frother wand, gel pens, aromatic shower bombs or Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies for less than $8. The Danish butter cookies are looking good at the moment because I missed lunch and finished off my final slice of Tiramisu watching the Spur-Thunder game last night. If I dish out the $8, forgo the butter cookies and American Classic doesn’t live up to your hype, I expect to see a tin of Danish butter cookies on my front porch ASAP. Incidentally, I do agree that Kevin Kline is one of the most versatile actors around. His film debut was as Meryl Streep’s lover in Sophie’s Choice, and he won an Oscar for playing a dim-witted con artist in A Fish Called Wanda.
“Sophie’s Choice” served as my introduction to Kevin Kline, and as much as I was moved by William Styron’s depiction of Nathan (and everyone else, for that matter), I was absolutely mesmerized by Kline’s depiction on screen. It showed me what the stretching of character, temperament and on-screen interaction with other actors could do to achieve an effect even beyond what can be conveyed with words on a page, powerful as those can be. I may just have to forego the Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies and plunk down another bill or two and take it all in again—it has been a few decades!
Thank you for finding “American Classic” and for your enthusiastic response. We hope for a second season of this optimistic, human, and beautifully acted show. So yes, we urge your readers to forego one latte this month and give it a try. Thanks again!
Thanks much, Leslie, and if you have any news on the second season front, please do come back here and share!