There are teachers who gently coax their charges. And then there’s Leonard, the brilliant editor who runs the titular fiction workshop in Theresa Rebeck’s new Broadway comedy “Seminar.” His inspiration isn’t “Dead Poets Society” but “Full Metal Jacket.”
And few actors could have fun with Leonard like the butterscotch-voiced Alan Rickman, a master of the withering put-down and the contemptuous side glance.
Casually bulldozing his students’ egos, Leonard describes a submission as “skillful, but whorish,” another as “a soul-sucking waste of words.” He’s the dark star that both attracts and repels the younger characters.
This could easily have led to a one-man show of sorts, but luckily rising director Sam Gold (“Circle Mirror Transformation,” “Kin”) has matched Rickman with a champion ensemble.
Jerry O’Connell is impeccably cocky as the whorish author. His clean-cut, ambitious Douglas is gunning for The New Yorker. But this only leads Leonard to sharply sum up then dismantle that magazine’s short stories. You can almost hear Rebeck (“Mauritius,” “The Understudy”) chuckling to herself when she wrote that scene.
As for Kate, the rich girl responsible for the waste of words — and in whose sprawling apartment the meetings take place — she’s lucky enough to be in the hands of the incomparable Lily Rabe. A Tony nominee for “The Merchant of Venice,” Rabe modulates her raspy pipes to fantastic effect, whether Kate attacks Kerouac’s machismo or tries hiding her attraction to her old friend and fellow workshopper Martin (the excellent, deceivingly affable Hamish Linklater).
Rebeck’s acidic dialogue often has a pingpong, sitcom-y quality — which isn’t a bad thing, especially considering that this would be a very good sitcom.
Accused of having a crush on Izzy (the slinky Hettienne Park), yet another writer, Martin demurs, “She’s a twit!”
“Yeah, guys hate that,” Kate tartly replies. “It sucks that she’s gorgeous, too.”
These exchanges distract you from the play’s implausible elements — here, an entire novel is deemed fascinating after 40 seconds of reading. The characters also follow a predictable arc.
Leonard may or may not make his students better writers, but he reveals them to themselves. The so-called twit turns out to be an ace player of the publishing game. Tagged as a prudish feminist early on, Kate dives into the sexy, morally ambiguous waters she was so quick to decry. And the high-minded Martin, appalled by his mentor’s rudeness, may well be a Leonard in training.
As for our star of contemporary letters, his prickly exterior inevitably hides deep-seated anxieties while his tough approach yields positive results — he can line-edit and give life lessons!
Yet you can overlook the formulaic plotting because the witty Rebeck hits plenty of bull’s-eyes, most notably when poking fun at literary Manhattan’s cutthroat world. And with actors of this caliber delivering the goods, it’s easy to just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.