John Shea (10/00 Down the Garden Paths)
Excerpt from Playbill 10/20/00: John Shea
Meara’s Garden Paths to Begin Winding OB Nov. 9 and Bloom Nov. 20
20 Oct 2000
Weeks ago, when the musical imPERFECT CHEMISTRY [sic] was still trying to take root at the Minetta Lane Theatre, it was revealed that Anne Meara’s new play, Down the Garden Paths, already had a back-up agreement for the venue. Though CHEMISTRY went kaboom Oct. 1, only recently were dates confirmed for the arrival of Meara’s comedy-drama. The show was to start previews Nov. 7 and open Nov. 19, but those dates have now been changed slightly, with the first preview now to commence Nov. 9 and the opening moved to Nov. 20. A spokesperson from the Jeffrey Richards press office told Playbill On-Line (Oct. 20) the play would be in a limited run through Jan. 28, 2001.
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For the Off-Broadway mounting, John Shea (last Off Broadway in The Director) takes over as Arthur, Adam Grupper (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change) will play Max and Leslie Lyles is Liz.
© Playbill
Excerpt from Variety 11/19/00: John Shea
Review: ‘Down the Garden Paths’
Charles Isherwood November 19, 2000 | 11:00PM PT
In a feeble comic mockumentary, Stiller impersonates the patron of an award being given to physics journalist/TV personality Arthur Garden (John Shea).
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Most of the rest of the cast - Leslie Lyles and the hard-working Shea in particular - deserves sympathy more than censure.
© Variety
Excerpt from Newsday 11/19/00: John Shea
Meara Examines Variations on a Life / The 'Paths' chosen lead a family to different outcomes
Published: November 19, 2000 7:00 PM By Linda Winer. STAFF WRITER
At the center is Arthur Garden-created in layers of self-satisfaction and self-loathing by John Shea-a science writer whose book, "Probable Paths," is being honored by the Strange Award. In a scene with ironic winks at Broadway's current hits, "Contact" and "Copenhagen," the acceptance speech dissolves into four different possibilities of his own family life.
© Newsday
Excerpt from Associated Press 11/19/00: John Shea
'Down the Garden Paths' Reviewed
MICHAEL KUCHWARA, Associated Press Nov. 19, 2000 4:14 PM ET
John Shea, an actor of considerable charm, is saddled with the role of Arthur, who, by the time he gets to the third variation of Meara's tale, has turned into a predictable whiner.
© Associated Press
Excerpt from New York Times 11/20/00: John Shea
THEATER REVIEW; If One Family Gathering Is Too Many, Try Three
By BRUCE WEBER November 20, 2000, Monday
But the play takes place decades later, presenting three renditions of a gathering in the apartment of their younger son, Arthur (John Shea), a writer who has just received an award for his new book.
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All things considered, within the individual segments, the actors do pretty well, particularly Mr. Shea. He manages to portray variations on Arthur, with his sequential troubles, without obscuring the central spine of a character stifled by a sense of responsibility.
© New York Times
Excerpt from Playbill 11/22/00: John Shea
PHOTO CALL: Down the Opening Paths: Wallach, Jackson, Shea Take Their Bows Nov. 19
22 Nov 2000
At right, Anne Jackson is presented for her bow by John Shea, who plays her son Arthur and her real-life husband, Eli Wallach, who plays her husband in Down the Garden Paths.
© Playbill
Excerpt from Village Voice 11/28/00: John Shea
Road Worriers
By Michael Feingold Tuesday, Nov 28 2000
And John Shea, who, as Arthur, has to carry this metamorphing world on his back, hurtles through a decathlon's worth of mixed emotions with the goofy, frantic charm of a Cary Grant who knows that, when the hourglass runs out, he'll turn back into Woody Allen.
© Village Voice
Excerpt from Wall Street Journal 11/29/00: John Shea
The Roads Not Taken
The quarrelsome, quip-happy Gardens, a showbiz clan whose domestic woes are chronicled ad tedium in "Down the Garden Paths," aren't one family -- they're three, possibly four families, all coexisting in separate shtick-based realities. "It's about infinite probabilities," explains Arthur Garden (John Shea), an earnest physicist, describing the hackneyed theory behind his new book at the start of the play. "Each time an event occurs or a choice is made, all the other possibilities happen in an alternate reality."
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As it happens, Mr. Shea, under David Saint's direction, does just fine as the brainy Arthur, a straight man to his flamboyant parents.
© Wall Street Journal
Excerpt from Curtain Up 11/30/00: John Shea
A CurtainUp Review: Down the Garden Paths
It also forces John Shea to rant and whine to the point of losing the audience's sympathy and having to win it back quicker than the blink of an eye.
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To avoid nepotism, we have John Shea (who actually looks as if he could be Anne Jackson's son).
© Curtain Up
Excerpt from Toledo Blade 12/12/00: John Shea
NEW KIDS IN TOWN?
John Shea made his Broadway debut 25 years ago in Yentl, and he's receiving rave reviews Off-Broadway in Anne Meara's Down the Garden Paths. When he told his co-stars, Eli Wallach and wife Anne Jackson, this fact, they laughed and said, "We made our Broadway debuts 50 years ago, and here we are, also Off-Broadway, and having a grand time."
© Toledo Blade
Excerpt from Theater Mania 12/26/00: John Shea
Down the Garden Paths
Reviewed By: Barbara & Scott Siegel
This new, more ambitious piece starts off with a sly send-up of awards dinners as the late benefactor of a wealthy foundation--the comically pixilated scientist Herschel Strange (Jerry Stiller)--is seen on videotape. This tape sets a light tone that is hilariously heightened when John Shea, as Arthur Garden, accepts the award given in Strange's name.
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They might be the first reason anyone would go to see Down the Garden Paths, but John Shea is the reason you'll remember it. He's the center of the play, offering a virtuoso performance in which he convincingly presents three distinctly different versions of himself.
© Theater Mania
Excerpt from Bates University 2001: John Shea
Last November, John Shea III performed in Down the Garden Path, a new play by Anne Meara staged at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York. “It’s about infinite possibilities,” says John, who plays earnest physicist Arthur Gordon.
© Bates
Excerpt from Irish Echo 2/16/01: John Shea
Theater Review All in the family: art imitates life in Meara comedy
February 16th By Joseph Hurley
DOWN THE GARDEN PATHS, by Anne Meara. Directed by David Saint. Starring Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson and John Shea. At Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane, NYC.
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John Shea is fine as the Gardens’ writer son, Arthur, although the role seems seriously underwritten and vaguely awkward, particularly as the play struggles along toward its somewhat dispiriting conclusion.
© Irish Echo
Excerpt from John Shea: 3/18/02 SciFi Weekly
John Shea's acting genes have taken him from Eugene O'Neill to Mutant X
By Kathie Huddleston
Shea: After Southie, I then stayed in New York for the next two years and did a series of independent films. I mean acting in them. I think I made about six of them during that time. They were all short, intense experiences. Completely different kinds of characters, and then I would be done and have some time off and then do another one. So there was the variety, which is missing when you do a long series. It took me in and out of various skins and taking on and off these various masks, which makes life more interesting. But then I stayed in New York, for the last two seasons I've been on stage working Off Broadway. I did two successful runs of two great plays. A play called The Director, which I starred in and then another play with Eli Wallach and Ann Jackson, that Anne Meara wrote, you know, Ben Stiller's mother. She's a wonderful playwright. She wrote a play called "Down the Garden Path." And that was a great experience.
© SciFi Weekly