Review: Six Degrees of Separation

Lesley Manville and Anthony Head

The title refers to the notion that no more than six people connect any two individuals on the planet. Whether it is the Queen and an Inuit fisherman or, as in John Guare’s still-relevant 1990 play, a black hustler called Paul and the wealthy New York couple into whose life he inveigles himself by pretending to be the sophisticated, highly educated son of the Hollywood actor Sidney Poitier.

It is a theory whose elegant lesson about our common humanity Guare uses to condemn America’s Liberal — sometimes Jewish — Haves, who can feel guilt about talented Have-nots such as Paul while still keeping them at a safe distance.

In David Grindley’s well-paced production, a mercurial Obi Abili dazzles as the conman (based on a real impersonator of Poitier’s son) who could charm his way into a bank’s vault, but who values and yearns for the life of an aesthete, rubbing shoulders with New York’s elite. It is a tragedy for him, given that his sophistication is real even if his identity is not.

Also on fine form is Anthony Head as the art dealer who transmits the callous concern of someone who could help but will not, and Lesley Manville as his wife who defiantly wants to help, but cannot.

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