Craig Wright’s explosively funny “Mistakes Were Made” is 100 minutes of high-octane bliss, with a tour de force turn from Michael Shannon blazing at its center. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard and so often at the theater. Gentlemen, my hat isn’t just off; it’s yet to come to earth.
Felix Artifex, a rather dodgy theatrical producer, wants to present neophyte playwright Steven Nelson’s epic about the French Revolution, also titled “Mistakes Were Made,” on Broadway. To make it happen, he is wooing Hollywood star Johnny Bledsoe to play King Louis XVI. But the sexy young actor instead wants to play the as-yet-unwritten role of “the kid,” a lieutenant of Robespierre's who really makes the revolution happen. Artifex puts it to the shocked author this way: “A kid with some hair on his nuts and a gun! Like the Sundance Kid, or the Frisco Kid; the Cincinnati Kid, ya know? He’s a kid!” Artifex juggles on multiple phone lines everyone from the author’s indignant agent to Johnny’s former co-star and ex-girlfriend to a man in the Iraq desert who is confronted by terrorists while shepherding a caravan of 1,000 sheep to be dipped. (The venture is intended to raise money for an ad in The New York Times.) Also involved are Artifex’s secretary Esther, who spends most of the play as a terse voice on the phone or a shadowy presence glimpsed through the frosted glass of the office door, and a large koi named Denise swimming in a fish tank at one end of the room. Artifex periodically unburdens himself to Denise about the difficulties of his life and work; he also feeds her incessantly despite Esther’s stern admonitions not to. Only one thing can trump Artifex’s single-minded drive: the longing to speak to the ex-wife who has frozen him out of her life.
Under Dexter Bullard’s symphonic direction, Shannon negotiates the role like Leonard Bernstein conducting a piece of Mahler’s. The actor tears into Wright’s compulsively quotable script (“Details are a gateway drug,” “I’m a scientist of lives”) with unbounded relish, even making something as innocuous as the words “it’s just an idea” reverberate with unspoken meaning. Amazingly, despite all the off-the-wall antics, Shannon also finds the human being at the heart of the craziness. Ably abetting him is Mierka Girten as Esther, whose rigorously professional execution of her job is yet another delicious source of humor. When Esther finally makes her inevitable appearance onstage, Girten absolutely nails it. Puppeteer Sam Deutsch’s manipulation of the gluttonous Denise mirrors Artifex’s obsessional intensity.
Tom Burch’s shabby and messy office set is spot-on, with posters for productions of “The Mouse Trap,” “The Zoo Story,” and “Same Time Next Year” side by side with photographs of former TV stars such as Suzanne Somers and Larry Hagman telling us a lot about Artifex even before a word is spoken. Keith Parham’s realistic lighting and Tif Bullard’s deliberately nondescript costumes successfully complete the picture.
“Six Feet Under” scribe Wright is clearly distilling a career’s worth of showbiz experience in Artifex. Nevertheless, the character transcends his milieu. Everyone knows an Artifex. “Mistakes Were Made” finally makes that knowledge into a supremely enjoyable experience.
Presented by Scott Morfee, Jean Doumanian, Tom Wirtshafter, Marc Biales, Rebecca Gold, Christian Chadd Taylor, and the Weinstein Company at the Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Barrow St., NYC. Opened Nov. 14 for an open run. Tue.–Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 2:30 p.m. (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.