STAGE REVIEWS : ‘Sidney Brustein’ Strident, Dated

It has been a long time since Lorraine Hansberry’s final play, “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” has been seen here. But Actors Alley’s revival of the 1964 play is valuable only as a curiosity.

Hansberry, best known for the almost all-black “A Raisin in the Sun,” was striving to expand her horizons. “Sign” has only one black character, a supporting role. Centered on a Greenwich Village intellectual and idealist surrounded by kooks, the work is fragmented, structurally shaky, dated and appears to be the rough draft it reportedly was.

Compounding these hurdles is the casting of Gene Freedman as the entitled Brustein. He is a gawky, stringy figure who never changes his colorless clothes. He is grating, but not nearly as much as his strident actress wife, played with adolescent Angst by Shirin Amini. Her wailing is skin deep, and their squabbling is only moderately relieved by a host of relatives and neighbors, including a gay playwright and the late appearance of a sister who’s a hooker (the manic Gloria Parodus).

None of this comes together under director Al Ruscio except in isolated moments that seem pat. The singular bright performance is from Susan Mackin, stealing the show as the deliriously nervous and square sister. A gem of a huge windowed set design (by Nina Ruscio) embellishes events, although there’s no particular Greenwich Village ambience.