Mad House. Ambassadors Theatre.

Fantastically charismatic performances by Mad House’s two leads cannot conceal the flaws, contrivances, and contradictions in Theresa Rebeck’s disappointing comedy drama.

26 June 2022 – Press Night

“When your parents die, things come out,” says the cruel and vindictive Pam to her mentally fragile brother, Mikey, towards the climax of the Ambassador’s Mad House. As a justification for the sheer malice of the character’s behaviour towards her sibling it is typically malicious, but it does sum up the play’s narrative arc quite neatly.

The parents in question are the siblings’ not long diseased mother and their gruesome emphysema-ridden, disabled father Daniel. Dad is still just about managing to keep his grasping, lecherous hands on life, looked after in his rickety but valuable Pennsylvania house by down-trodden son, Mikey.

In the background keeping a long-distance eye on their inheritance are she-devil Pam (or the “one with the small tits” as her father affectionately labels her) and money-obsessed third brother, Nedward.

Not long released from a year in a psychiatric institution, it seems that Mikey, a sufferer from life-long psychotic episodes, has moved out of the frying pan and into the fire. The occupants of this house, by which we can read father and children, turn out to be a great deal madder than those he left behind.

The tyrannical Daniel throws his food around, spits in his son’s face, plays his kids off against each other and gropes lecherously at any passing female. He is a “demon from the dawn of time,” says Mikey early on, which turns out to be something of an understatement. Later Mikey asks, not entirely rhetorically, “Have you ever, really, really, wanted someone dead?” We see his point.

Into this set up comes hospice-worker and voice of sanity Lilian, or “the death nurse” as father and son refer to her. She is the only rational voice around and it is not entirely clear if she will survive being drawn into the madness that surrounds her.

If there is a question having over the play, it is how did these people come to be this awful and is there any redemption to be had?

The best of the play’s comedy comes in the first and second act interactions between father, played with a gleefully baroque malevolence by Bill Pullman, and the charismatic and crowd-pleasing presence of David Harbour as Mikey.

The arrival of first Nedward and then Pam brings some welcome comedic complications, the highlight of which is the appearance of two $300-an-hour hookers, whose attendance, Mikey assures a horrified Nedward, will smooth dad’s passing.

Rebeck writes some funny lines and Moritz von Stuelpnagel’s direction benefits from gifted performers whose comic timing is impeccable and whose slapstick is spot-on. This is one reason why Mad House’s humour works much more effectively than its drama.

The overlong second-half, show-down between the three bitterly mismatched siblings does not convincingly address the play’s central question, mainly because there is no convincing explanation as to why the characters feel the way they do about each other.

A child’s mental illness can be like an atom bomb in a family, with life-long aftereffects for all concerned, particularly siblings. But being a bitch or a grasping shmuck because your dad was a monster, and your brother was ill, really does not provide enough driving motivational force to adequately sustain a 130 minute drama.

Understanding, love, and forgiveness, which are what make most family members stick together, is almost entirely absent from the constitution of Rebeck’s characters. As a result, the play is populated by personalities that are curiously unreal and one-dimensional, however sporadically funny.

Did Mad house deserve the standing ovation that Broadway-influenced West End audiences seem to insist on nowadays? Make up your own mind.

Despite powerhouse performances I was not at all convinced.

David Harbour Michael

Bill Pullman Daniel

Hanako Footman Devon

Akiya Henry Lillian

Sinead Matthews Pam

Charlie Oscar Skylar

Stephen Wight Nedward

Writer Theresa Rebeck

Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel

Set design Frankie Bradshaw

Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes. One interval.

Full Disclosure: I paid full box-office price for the ticket.