A McMansion Becomes a Stage in This American Wife

Something very funny is going inside the stately mansion tucked away at the end of an azalea-lined cul-de-sac in Lake Success, New York. There is a camera in the refrigerator. And another in the oven. Two actors, Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, deliver hysterical monologues rife with female trouble into them. In another part of the house, actor Jakeem Dante Powell plants his face next to a statuette of a naked male wrestler’s rear end. Plaster vases in the shape of human body parts decorate a bookcase. Jars of lemon drops and real lemons adorn a tabletop. A giant pink Barbie-style truck has been exhumed from the basement and moved to a shocking pink bedroom. Another bedroom has been turned into a control room, with multiple computer screen monitors watched over by a crew that includes director Rory Pelsue and dramaturges Cat Rodriguez and Ariel Sibert.

Suburbia may never be the same.

Breslin, Foley, and their merry band of artists (Slave Play writer Jeremy O. Harris is a producer) have turned this empty Long Island house—the owners live elsewhere and rent it out—into a virtual theater for the production of This American Wife, an experimental and quite demented homage to Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise that the pair have conceived and written. The young men are diehard fans of Bethenny Frankel, Luann de Lesseps, Kelly Bensimon, and other divas of the franchise and will act out 15 full scenes from the show in a daring attempt to elevate the reality stars from the histrionic drama queens we have come to know to the level of cultural figures. Each night from May 20 through May 29, the audiences will tune in via livestream to watch the play unfold inside the impossibly true-to-life set. (Tickets are from $25 or $50 and may be purchased here.)

“We were in [Yale] drama school when we started to work on this, and a big impetus was to situate these women in the context of great heroines and great performance artists,” Foley says. “Certainly someone like Bethenny or Lisa Rinna are incredibly skilled at telling stories for a certain medium.”

In This American Wife, the company aims to “recontextualize,” as Foley puts it, epic moments from the various series while trying to “reframe them in internet language via Go Pro [cameras].” Case in point: Powell rehearses the nasty scene in which Atlanta housewife Kenya Moore, insulted by fellow housewife Porsha’s introduction of her at a charity event as a former Miss America (she is a former Miss USA), twirls her way out of a poolside gathering of her fellow housewives with a withering exit line: “I am Gone With the Wind fabulous!”

Breslin and Foley have been workshopping the play for four years and did a shorter production of it in 2018. The popularity of their most recent virtual play, 2019’s Circle Jerk, brought them greater attention and financing. They rehearsed the new piece for five weeks, first in Sarah Jessica Parker’s former Charles Street brownstone in Manhattan—her walk-in closet had stickers on the walls from the tony private school her son attended—and then in this airy, spacious home that was once rented by tennis champ Naomi Osaka when she played in the U.S. Open. The foyer features a handsome curving staircase that provides a natural backdrop for melodramatic confrontations.

“It was a joy to come here because we were able to shoot scenes on the staircase, which we were not able to do before,” Foley says from a pillowed perch in the silvery gray primary bedroom. “We had space in the kitchen. We had this amazing bed.”

Production designer Stephanie Osin Cohen brought in props that would enhance the decor, which leans heavily on neutrals: white rooms, and white sectional sofas and dining room chairs. “Each room is inspired by the architecture of the house,” she says. “I just pushed it to the point where you question, ‘Was it there before or added on?’ I bought 60 to 70 pillows. A shag throw blanket.” In the primary bedroom, a mirror positioned on the mantel catches the light from a handsome chandelier. “We’re just trying to play with textures and reflective surfaces,” she says.

One of Cohen’s most clever additions showcases nine black-and-white photos of a small dog, an homage to the housewives’ fondness for tiny canines. The dog actually belongs to Breslin. “The fourth star of the show is Eclipse the Pomeranian,” he says gleefully.

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Housewives fans expecting a nod to the franchise’s most vicious catfight, when New Jersey housewife Teresa Giudice screamed “Prostitution whore!” at fellow housewife Danielle Staub before flipping a table set with dinnerware and full wineglasses, will be disappointed. “You’ve seen so much of ‘prostitution whore,’” says Foley. “Don’t need to re-create it again.” (But what if there’s a backlash on social media? Breslin declares, “I don’t let the Twitter mob tell me what to do.”)

What Housewives fans won’t miss is the striking similarity between the Long Island house and those seen on the Bravo franchise. Its aesthetic—too much of a good thing is never enough—perfectly aligns with the McMansions of Giudice and fellow New Jersey housewife Jennifer Aydin while offering a unique setting for a play.

“It’s a totally different way of engaging with the [theater] and I think it’s really exciting,” Foley says.