Theater: Barrymore Theatre / 243 West 47th Street, New York, NY, 10036
Synopsis:
Allison Janney, John Benjamin Hickey and Corey Hawkins star on Broadway in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation for 15 weeks only.
Inspired by a true story, John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation follows the trail of a young black con man who insinuates himself into the lives of a wealthy white New York couple. After a shocking surprise, however, their picture of the young man changes, and the couple try to piece together the connections that gave him access to their lives.
John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation received the 1991 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play and the 1993 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. It was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.
NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF Six Degrees of Separation
A Scam Artist’s Masterwork in ‘Six Degrees of Separation’
Ben Brantley
That dangerous young man who calls himself Paul Poitier has grown up in the 27 years since he first set foot on a New York stage. All right, perhaps not “grown up,” since we’re still talking about a narcissistic con artist of adolescent fecklessness and zero self-knowledge. But there’s no doubt that he has grown in stature and, in a paradoxical way, truthfulness.
When John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation” opened in 1990, the scintillating tragic-comedy was scathing and wildly enjoyable, even though one of the targets — New York’s radical chic — had begun to feel just a bit easy to lampoon.
Any doubt that John Guare’s 1990 sharp-edged comedic drama “Six Degrees of Separation” is one of the finest contemporary American plays should be put to rest by the terrific new Broadway revival starring Allison Janney (“The West Wing”), John Benjamin Hickey (“The Normal Heart”) and Corey Hawkins (“Straight Outta Compton”).
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY REVIEW OF Six Degrees of Separation
EW Review of Six Degrees of Separation
Melissa Rose Bernardo
If there’s one thing to be learned from the beautifully unsettling Broadway revival of Six Degrees of Separation it’s this: There’s no expiration date on a Cats joke. Nearly 30 years after John Guare’s drama premiered, the most absurd (and absurdly funny) thread isn’t that a clutch of wealthy Manhattanites were hoodwinked by a sweet-talking stranger claiming to be Sidney Poitier’s son; it’s that he promised them all parts in the movie version of Cats — and they were thrilled.
Allison Janney, Corey Hawkins Lead ‘Six Degrees Of Separation’
Jeremy Gerard
When Six Degrees of Separation opened off-Broadway, and then on, late in 1990, we thought the genius of John Guare’s excoriating comedy lay in the perfect way it captured a moment in a particular subset of American culture. We were wrong.