The squabbling over whether to put a stop sign on the neighborhood’s prettiest street might not sound  substantial enough to build a play around. But David Lindsay-Abaire’s fresh and funny comedy uses the pettiness, blind spots and outright biases of the diverse characters who are involved to comment with sharp insight on The Way We Live Now.  That’s capitalized because it’s the title of Anthony Trollope’s 19th century novel, a scathing satire of schemers in Victorian England. “The Balusters” is far more benevolent towards its ten characters, who though certainly flawed, admittedly hypocritical and sometimes scheming do try (usually) to be decent people. But they too live in Victorian houses.

Their houses are located in affluent Vernon Point, a leafy, landmarked enclave that abuts a poorer community in an unspecified  city on the East Coast. The home in which the play takes place belongs to Kyra Marshall (Anika Noni Rose), a newcomer to the neighborhood who has already become a board member of the Vernan Point Neighborhood Association, and has agreed to serve as host for their April meeting this evening. 

As the other board members arrive, we witness from the get-go how their differences in race, class, gender,  age and temperament  play out in variously subtle, awkward, tense and vivid ways.   The vice president of the Association, Melissa Han (Jeena Yi), mistakes Luz Baccay (Maria-Christina Oliveras), for Kyra’s mother-in-law. “I’m the housekeeper,” Luz corrects her. 
“You don’t need to say housekeeper,” Kyra says to Luz.
“Can we rewind please?” Melissa says, embarrassed. “Hi, I’m Melissa. It’s nice to meet you.”
“We’ve met before. A few times actually.” Luz used to work for Elliot Emerson (Richard Thomas), the Association’s president. Melissa feels even worse.
“Maybe it’s because I’m not wearing the uniform,” Luz says. “The Emersons liked the uniform, but Mrs. Marshall prefers I not wear it.”
“I just want you to be comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable either way.”

This seemingly casual three-way exchange, which occurs in the first few minutes of the play, strikes me as a sophisticated and cheeky take on both race and class in liberal America. Kyra is Black and Luz is Filipino. Melissa works with Kyra’s husband Leon (whom we never see) in a corporate law firm, so we surmise that Leon must be some race other than Black;  Melissa  (who is herself Asian-American) must be embarrassed to have misidentified Luz in part because she made an assumption based on race. That Melissa doesn’t recognize the help further embarrasses her, because it shows her up as a class snob, which is the last thing she wants to be.  Meanwhile, Kyra, who grew up poor, doesn’t want to acknowledge that she is on the other side of a class system from the woman she hires to clean her house and hang up the coats of her guests. Ironically, Luz will do what Kyra says and not wear a uniform because Kyra, after all, is her boss.

Ruth Ackerman (Margaret Colin) doesn’t worry about being culturally insensitive; quite the opposite:  She is wears a rabbit fur coat in the house for the sole purpose of annoying fellow board member Willow Gibbons (Kayli Carter), who is a vegan.

 “Give it a pat. It’s so soft. Like a bunny,” Ruth says.

“Like a dead bunny, you mean,” Willow replies. “I’m not gonna pat your coat.”

Just then Isaac Rosario (Ricardo Chavira) interrupts. “Hey Ruth, I stopped outside your house yesterday.”

“Oh yeah?” Ruth says. “Were you casing the joint?”

Willow is aghast. “You just asked a Latin-X man if he was planning to rob your home.”

Isaac sees it differently: “I was more bothered that you called me Latin-X.”

“Sounds like a superhero,” says Penny (Marylouise Burke)

“Sounds like retro woke bullshit, you mean,” Isaac says. It’s the only time anybody actually says  “woke” in that way, although the word hangs over the play.

All of this, I should point out, happens before the meeting even starts, and the central conflict begins: Kyra is concerned about the car accidents that are occurring on the street corner outside her window, and wants the board to ask the city to put in a stop sign. Elliot is opposed, because it would ruin the unobstructed view of “the only esplanade in the neighborhood.”

Tensions ratchet up over the next three months; there is confrontation, comeuppance, calamity, confidence betrayed, corruption exposed.  “The Balusters” at times reminded me of Tracy Letts’ “The Minutes” which similarly found humor in a dry official proceeding that then gets out of control (wildly in Letts’ play, mildly in Lindsay-Abaire’s)  At other times, it was reminiscent of Jonathan Spector’s “Eureka Day,” the 2025 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, in the way it pokes fun at  painstakingly earnest progressives while taking them and their concerns seriously – or at least most of them. Lindsay-Abaire’s play seems especially harsh in its depiction of Willow, a young white woman with a trust fund who is strident and whiny and disliked (“Every meeting Willow shakes her finger at us”) and, if that’s not bad enough, eats pork dumplings (although the playwright does give her a redemptive retort: “That’s not hypocrisy, it’s a relapse!”)

Under the direction of Kenny Leon, the terrific cast creates believable and fully inhabited characters,  each getting at least one solid moment in the spotlight and making the most of it, while all also working together in a well-orchestrated ensemble.

It seems unfair to leave anybody unmentioned – let’s see, there’s also Carl Clemons-Hopkins as Brooks Duncan, who feels targeted more for being gay than Black (although, in a clever twist, things are not what they seem), and Michael Esper as Alan Kirby, who feels targeted for being a straight white man.  It also feels unfair to single out any individual performances.  

But how can I not point out that Anika Noni Rose and Richard Thomas are the two poles of the play around which the plot and the other characters circle around?

And l also do need to single out Marylouise Burke as Penny Buell, the eldest member of the board, whom the others view as daffy. Her age is, we suspect, not irrelevant to their view, especially since she turns out to be sharper than they realized.

Marylouise Burke has been a wonder in everything I’ve seen her in, and she’s exceptional here; she gets the best zingers.  This is not an accident. In a recent interview, David Lindsay-Abaire admitted he favors her; this is their seventh collaboration; he sees her as his muse; he wrote the character with her in mind.

For the record, the playwright also said in that interview that he lives in a Victorian home in the relatively affluent Ditmas Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, where his wife served on the board of the local neighborhood association.  Whether or not it was real conflicts in the past that informed the hilarious and pointed squabbling in “The Balusters,” it won’t be too surprising if the play causes some squabbling in the future.

The Balusters
MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater through May 24
Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission.
Tickets: $58 – $347. Digital Rush: $49
Written by David Lindsay-Abaire
Directed by Kenny Leon
Scenic design by Derek McLane, costume design by Emilio Sosa, lighting design  by Allen Lee Hughes, original music and sound design  by Dan Moses Schreier, fight direction by Thomas Schall, vocal coach  Deborah Hecht
Cast: Marylouise Burke as Penny Buell; Kayli Carter as Willow Gibbons; Ricardo Chavira as Isaac Rosario, Carl Clemons-Hopkins as Brooks Duncan, Margaret Colin as Ruth Ackerman; Michael Esper as Alan Kirby; Maria-Christina Oliveras as Luz Baccay, Anika Noni Rose as Kyra Marshall, Richard Thomas as Elliott Emerson, Jeena Yi  as Melissa Han
Photos by Jeremy Daniel