The Assembled Parties by Richard Greenberg. Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London NW3 until 22 November 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Helen Murray.

The Assembled Parties by Richard Greenberg. Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London NW3 until 22 November 2025,

4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Tracy Oberman dazzles.”

Very funny with performances to relish from Tracy-Ann Oberman and Jennifer Westfeldt making her UK debut, the play takes place in a grand New York apartment at Christmas in 1980 and then twenty years later. The family are Jewish, but a party is a party and there is a tree, and the songs of the season get played. First staged on Broadway in 2013 it received three Tony nominations including one for best play and has taken a long time to come here. We see the two women, Faye, played by Oberman and Julie, played by Westfeldt, sisters in law, from the point of view of Jeff, a young man played by Sam Marks, brought home from Christmas 1980 by Julie's son. They are both students at Harvard. He is still around twenty years later having prospered, whereas Julie has not and her once smart apartment is now at risk to property developers. The problem is caring about any of them. On the other hand, Oberman, who gets the best lines, is a terrific Faye, a broad who can deliver lines with the panache of a Bette Midler, while Westfeldt does a lovely line in a woman who really needs to be looked after but she belongs in another play. Once a minor movie star she is now a widow devoted to cooking meals and fluttering about like someone escaped from something by Tennessee Williams. There is quite a lot of chat about the horrors of the Republican presidents of the time – Reagan and Bush – but today compared to the current horror in office they seem positively benevolent. The play was written before Trump came on the scene and if it had to come here should have come here sooner. Blanche McIntyre has directed it well, the sets are handsome, although doors do not open outwards, something set designers seem not to realise, and the cast are fine. The problem is the play – what it had to say clearly worked on American audiences twelve years ago and might have had for audiences here had it arrived sooner. But go for Oberman and Westfeldt and relish the good lines that still work, forget the family problems and all the stuff about a ruby necklace which once thought fake proves to be real.

Cast

Daniel Abelson – Ben

Julia Kass – Shelley

Davud Kennedy – Mort

Alexander Marks – Scotty/Tim

Sam Mark – Jeff

Tracy Ann Oberman – Faye

Jennifer Wwstfeldt – Julie

Francisco Labbe – Hector

Rex Bamber – Timmy

Maxwell Rich – Timmy

Creatives

Director – Blanche McIntyre

Designer – James Cotterill

Lighting Designer – Malcolm Rippeth

Sound Designer – John Leonard

Dialect Coach – Andrea Fudge