In N.Y., Philly playwright’s ‘Any Given Monday’ tighter, subtler

NEW YORK - Nuance - the shadows and creases that provide depth and richness - is what makes the Off-Broadway production of Any Given Monday so different from its world-premiere version last year in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia playwright Bruce Graham has reworked a bit of his striking, funny play, which overturns commonly held values in order to celebrate the very notion of values. But that's only partly why Any Given Monday differs in overall effect from its first productions at Theatre Exile in Center City, then Act II Playhouse in Ambler, joint producers of its premiere.

The play's new feel comes from a mix of the much-tighter Graham monologues that pop into the action throughout, the staging by director Bud Martin that brings those monologues directly into a tableau of the interrupted action, and the new casting of the major character, a street-smart, tough-mouthed guy named Mickey.

Mickey is the buddy who comes to comfort his longtime friend (Paul Michael Valley), whose wife has suddenly dumped him. The two commiserate as a game of Monday Night Football - Giants vs. Cowboys - plays out on TV. The story propels in one narrative arc, shifts into another, and continues to fan out. To say anything else would be giving away its several surprises.

I will say that Graham, Philadelphia's most prolific playwright, manipulates themes of friendship, folly, philandering, and philosophy to examine good and evil, purposely confusing which is which in a fluid ride that involves both men, the wife who walked out (Hillary B. Smith), and the spurned husband's college-age daughter (Lauren Ashley Carter), the only character in the play who seems forced in a new slimmed-down role. (The two-act, brought to New York's 59E59 theater by Act II, has lost about 12 minutes, and is better for it.)

In the Philadelphia version, staged by Act II's associate artistic director, Harriet Power, Mickey - the friend of this woebegone family who drives the plot by taking things into his own hands - was played by one of the city's most visible actors, Pete Pryor. In an altogether excellent evening of theater, he mined Mickey's mouthy, Archie Bunkeresque quality for every laugh possible.

In a different altogether excellent evening of theater, with a new cast under the aegis of Martin - Act II's artistic director and a producer on Broadway and London's West End - Mickey is played by Michael Mastro, who plumbs the character in another way. His Mickey is just as absurd but more pensive, more reasoned, more rich, and more real.

He is also barely rewritten, except for one big monologue he once delivered to the audience, now largely incorporated into the play's action. So the difference here is one of interpretation. That doesn't mean that Any Given Monday, as a play, is now that much better; it's still as fine as it was. It just means that a little bit of rethinking can make for a very different experience.

Contact staff writer Howard Shapiro at 215-854-5727, hshapiro@phillynews.com, or #philastage on Twitter.