'You Can’t Take It with You' on Broadway

If you think your family is eccentric, wait till you meet the Sycamores, the stars of the show and the nuttiest family ever to inhabit an American living room — let alone a stage.

Mr. Sycamore makes explosives in the basement with his friend Mr. DePinna, who doubles as a male model for Mrs. Sycamore, an artist when she isn’t a playwright. (A typewriter was delivered to the Sycamore house by mistake eight years ago, and that accident started her writing career). Daughter Essie, a budding ballerina, takes lessons from Mr. Kolenkhov, a raving refugee from tsarist Russia, while her husband Ed delivers candy (the main staple of the Sycamore diet) to the neighborhood. Grandpa has devoted the last 35 years to his live snake collection. P.S. They’re all blissfully happy.

Kaufman and Hart tell their story in three tightly constructed acts (a literary achievement that was dramatized so colorfully last year at Lincoln Center in Hart’s autobiographical Act One, adapted by James Lapine). In this act one, we get cozy with the Sycamores, as the characters are introduced one at a time, each outdoing the previous one in eccentricity. The plot is driven by Alice (the lovely Rose Byrne), the only family member who holds a steady job, as a secretary in a Manhattan business. She’s being wooed by her boss, the dashing Tony Kirby (Fran Kranz).

The couple become engaged at the end of the act, and all goes well, aside from an unexpected visit from an IRS agent, who claims that Grandpa hasn’t paid his taxes for decades. “Why should I?” replies Grandpa (played by the larger-than-life James Earl Jones). “What are you going to give me for my money?”

Fireworks

Act two delivers the evening’s fireworks, both comedically and literally. Tony’s parents, the Kirbys, come to dinner to meet the Sycamores — on the wrong night. The gathering is plunged into confusion, and as the befuddled hosts and guests wait for a hastily prepared meal (of boiled frankfurters, or pig’s feet, or scrambled eggs, whatever gets made first), they play a parlor game that, literally, explodes in their faces. The masterful Scott Ellis stages one of the funniest farcical scenes I’ve seen on Broadway in years, directing his 16-member ensemble in choreographed chaos.

The delights of act three are yours to discover. Suffice it to say, that after two hilarious hours, you’ll want to jump up on that stage, dive into designer David Rockwell’s overstuffed living room (chock full of colorful tchotchkes), and share the love. There’s no way of resisting the comedic genius of Annaleigh Ashford as Essie, whose balletic performance steals the show (she thinks she’s in Swan Lake). Nor can you withstand the batty charms of Penny (played by the ebullient Kristine Nielsen), the playwright who is suffering through her latest draft (“I’ve gotten into a monastery and I can’t get out”). Try keeping a straight face at the surprise appearance in act three of yet another eccentric, Countess Olga, cousin of the tsar (played by the imperious Elizabeth Ashley) and a friend of Mr. Kolenkhov’s who waitresses at Child’s on 42nd Street. The batch of blini she whips up in the Sycamore kitchen looks irresistible.

Above all, there’s the immortal James Earl Jones at 83, who faces down the IRS and gives you the best financial advice you’ll ever get: “Relax and let the world come to you. You have all the money you need. You can’t take it with you.”