The Hangover

Late in Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, all the men in Hedda’s life—her husband, George Tesman, her former tutor Eilert Lovborg and family friend Judge Brack—leave her behind to attend a bachelor party at the Judge’s home. Whatever happened at that party results in one botched and one successful suicide by play’s end.

In [Brack’s Last Bachelor Party], playwright Sam Marks has taken it upon himself to explain just what happened at what, by Ibsen’s account, seems like a rowdy gathering of men who are far from good friends. But the problem with focusing on the men in Hedda’s life is that they seem inconsequential when divorced from their interactions with her. Ibsen’s play was titled simply and purposefully after his heroine, not Hedda Gabler and Her Men. The result is something that feels like a playwrighting exercise more than a fully fleshed out play.

Some of the problems can be laid at director Geordie Broadwater’s feet. Taking the intermingling of Ibsen’s play with a contemporary story by Marks as a jumping off point, Broadwater increasingly adds modern touches to the bachelor party, from red Solo party cups to a pack of Marlboro lights. These off-putting touches feel both arbitrary and amateur, distracting us from Marks’ version of the three men’s turning points. Coupled with the terrible set from Tristan Jeffers (Brack’s apartment, judging from the cracked, barren walls, appears to be located in a hovel), Brack’s Last Bachelor Party increasingly feels less than professional.

At least the performances are assured. Josh Barrett does his best as George Tesman, but Marks hasn’t found a way to make his interactions with Brack and Lovborg as interesting as Ibsen’s scenes between Tesman and Hedda. Mostly, Marks’ Tessman seems like a simp who oscillates between suspect euphoria at his recent marriage and impending fatherhood, and desperation at the thought that life may not really be so pleasant.

Michael Crane is appropriately cutting as the intellectual Lovborg, whose manuscript inspires Marks’ contemporary story, which revolves around a harried mother (Crystal Finn, who doesn’t bring much to Marks’ oblique character) eyeing a pillow intensely while a baby screams in the background. But his loss of control at the party, one which hastens his despair and downfall, has been outfitted with all the accoutrements of a wild spring break, from plastic leis to Mardi Gras beads. It’s hard to take his self-destruction seriously when Broadwater and costume designer Becky Lasky make him seem less like a daring radical and more like a frat boy who’s never met a six-pack he didn’t like.

As Judge Brack, Alexander Alioto is a conniving and devious manipulator, though oddly young for the role. Marks comes closest to his goal of elucidating how one party can lead to so much destruction with Brack, who here seems intent on turning Lovborg and Tesman into hollowed out men who will so regret their out-of-control behavior that they can no longer stand between Brack and Hedda. Too bad watching the process isn’t as interesting as the outcome.

[Brack’s Last Bachelor Party]

Through Mar. 14, 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-279-4200; $18.