What's THE PORTUGUESE KID All About? Jason Alexander & Company Explain!

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. Up next for Manhattan Theatre Club is the world premiere of John Patrick Shanley's new romantic comedy, The Portuguese Kid

This marks the 13th collaboration between MTC and the Tony Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning playwright

It also welcomes back to the stage Tony Award winner Jason Alexander

And we caught up with the company during a break in rehearsal. This sounds hilarious

Well, Jason Alexander and Sherry Renee Scott are Lucy and Desi. And they have the scene in this thing where they fight for dominance

And it's just, it's a throwdown. It's a comic throwdown. Who's going to win this scene

And I still don't know who's going to win. It's pretty funny. Let's talk about being in the rehearsal room with this incredible company that you put together. Yeah

Well, I mean, I've got five comic real actors sort of in a battle royal for each scene to be the scene

And it's really fun to sort of watch the Darwinian comic struggle unfold before my eyes

Sort of like watching funny prehistoric monsters. Barry Dragonetti is a Rhode Island lawyer with a specialty in real estate and estates

He on surface level appears to be maybe a little bit of a shady guy or at least wants to give you the impression that he a tough guy you know And he is at heart a very soft gentle quiet man

Very much not what Atalanta says she is looking for, and yet this connection between them that is unknowable and unexplainable and undeniable

is established within the first five seconds of the show. And Barry's heart, rather than his ego

is what the journey of my character takes. Is that letting ego and what you think you are and want to be

go and becoming authentic. And it's a great, lovely, beautiful, poetic role to play

Well, I wanted to do it before I even read the script because I knew, you know, always admired John

and I've always admired Jason. We've known each other through the years

so I was immediately excited in a way that, you know, doesn't happen usually before you start reading something

And then I think what Shanley's working through is really fascinating for this time

and his sense of humor is so you know smart and foul and fantastic and you know the issues of what is female empowerment in a time when we not empowered and how do we find that and the balance between the male relationships the absurdity of that the comedy of that the age people with young people you know it all just so fantastically absurd

and I think he's really embracing all of that in this rom-com

So this is like your third week of rehearsal, right? Yes, we're in the middle of our third week of rehearsal

And we start tech next week. I mean, it's crazy how fast. So what's it like being in the room with John Patrick Shanley

not only as a playwright, but as the director? Yeah, it's really fun. He's really delightful

And he's very open to collaboration, and he changes stuff every day, rewrites every day

He makes it better. He hones, hones, hones, hones. So it's lovely to watch, yeah

and it's a great group of people. What a great cast. Sharing the stage with this group

and Jason Alexander. I play his mother. I'm four years older than him

It's like Hollywood. What do you play? I play Patty. She's a 29-year-old Puerto Rican girl

who is in this sort of marriage of convenience with Jason Alexander

but she is a survivor. And this play is mostly about identity, right

So I think everyone's kind of running from who they really are and she is doing her damnedest to stay in this marriage And so in the end they all have to sort of face who they are and their true identity And so whether you like that or not

it doesn't matter. Life is going to make you face it. And so that's kind of her trajectory

and everybody else in life too. We've got Jason, Alexander, Sherry, Renee, Scott

Amy, oh, Carrero, Mary Testa. These guys are so talented. Such lovely people

I consider it such a treat to be able to wake up in the morning and see them

first thing, you know? And we jump right in and we mine the material. We really

got right on our feet pretty soon. I mean, yeah. It seems like a dream. You know what I mean

Like, am I really working on a John Patrick Shanley play right now? With these people? And being directed

by him, too. Every time I say it out loud, it's, like

shocking to me. I just, I really hope that we can do our best to bring

John's vision of life here and really mine the material for all it's worth because I think it's a

spectacular comedy, you know? It's sort of grand. These characters are larger than life and

and yet at the same time these are real people and we don't want to make them

too much of a caricature out of them so yeah we still got like two weeks of rehearsal

so work, work, work, work and hopefully it pays off This is a play that's really hungry for an audience

and I'll tell you I think the audience is going to be hungry for this play

because it's rough out there right now and I don't know about you

but I could use a laugh Thank you