By Carol Rocamora . . .  EXTENDED THRU JUNE 18 . . .

In a boisterous Broadway season bursting with blockbusters, big casts, and flashy dance ensembles, a small, gentle play can still make a sound of its own. A deep, resonating one that echoes long after you’ve left the theater . . .

Such is the case of Summer, 1976, David Auburn’s bittersweet two-hander now playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, courtesy of the Manhattan Theatre Club. It follows the development of a friendship between two women, Diana (Laura Linney) and Alice (Jessica Hecht), thrown together out of necessity through their children’s babysitting co-op. Diana, a single mother, teaches art at Ohio State. Alice’s husband is up for tenure in the Department of Economics. It was the beginning of a long, hot summer. “I didn’t like her child, actually,” Diana tells the audience, speaking of Alice’s daughter, Holly. But their respective five-year-old daughters hit it off immediately.

So Diana and Alice are stuck with each other. “I sort of immediately hated her,” adds Diana, referring to Alice. Still, they spend almost every day together over that summer, smoking pot on Diana’s porch while their daughters play happily. (The pot was supplied by Alice and procured from Merle, one of her husband’s students who was painting their house.) 

Jessica Hecht, Laura Linney

Little by little, a bond forms between this unlikely pair, sitting on that porch, smoking, and eating leftovers from Diana’s fridge. Diana is an intellectual—confident and a bit condescending. Her house is orderly and impeccable; as are her opinions. Alice, in contrast, is a so-called hippy— low-key, laid-back, a stay-at-home mom content to read popular novels all summer. But by her own admission, “people aren’t just one thing;” Alice had her sly side, too. Her husband Doug created shares for the babysitting co-op with a rubber stamp, which Alice borrows to make additional ones “on the side” for Diana.

Gradually, they get to know one another over that long, hot summer. Diana is a single mother who got pregnant on a second date (the biological father disappeared before her daughter Gretchen’s birth, and Diana doesn’t seem to care). Alice’s husband Doug is having an affair with one of his students, and their marriage is under strain. And when there is a crisis—like Diana’s twenty-four-hour migraine, or Alice seeking refuge at Diana’s during a marital clash—they are there for each other. 

There are rifts, there are reconciliations, there are revelations. Diana calls herself a failure, admitting that she’s not a professor in the art department; rather, she’s an adjunct, teaching in the adult continuing education program. As for other revelations, they each confess having erotic fantasies about Merle, the house-painting stoner. But these confessions are not made to each other. Rather, Diana and Alice make them directly to the audience, in Auburn’s cleverly constructed dialogue. (There are also instances where—as Alice’s marriage is falling apart—Diana plays the role of Doug.)

Jessica Hecht, Laura Linney

In one of the most poignant fantasies, at their respective low points, Diana imagines that she and Alice escape together—grabbing their daughters, packing a car, and driving across the country to start a new life in San Francisco. The daughters grow up and become best friends. Meanwhile, Diana and Alice blossom, thanks to their mutual support. Diana becomes a “known artist,” exhibited in contemporary art museums. Alice becomes a novelist—her book is a bestseller and gets made into a film. 

“Of course, none of that happened,” Diana summarizes.

 “Years go by.” Flash forward through twenty-five years, as each narrates to the audience. Diana gets a job at Kenyon College in administration. After her divorce from Doug, Alice gets a job in Columbus as a middle-school English teacher. They see each other less and less. Diana sends Alice a holiday card every year, one that she designs herself; Alice doesn’t respond. “I’m not a card person,” Alice explains to us. They lose touch.

Decades later, in the play’s seventh and final scene, they meet by chance at a Paul Klee art show in New York. It’s now 2003. They have coffee. Alice is visiting her daughter Holly, now in medical school. As for her own daughter, Diana confesses that Gretchen is having “a bit of a rough patch,” hinting at a drug problem and a suicide attempt. But that revelation is only to us, not to Alice. There’s an awkward moment. Suddenly, Alice announces that she must leave to pick up her grandson after school. While waiting for her taxi (another uncomfortable moment for both), it is revealed (indirectly) that Diana made the holiday cards only for Alice, and when there was no response, stopped sending them. 

Auburn’s dialogue flows smoothly, naturally, and artfully—from direct audience address to conversation between Diana and Alice and then back to audience address. It’s delivered with command and panache by these two virtuosic performers, Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht. Under Daniel Sullivan’s sure-handed direction, they offer a marvelous masterclass in acting (on John Lee Beatty’s ingenious set). Like other recent pairs (Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams in Mary Stuart; Patty LuPone and Christine Ebersole in War Paint; Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon in The Little Foxes), this star-power duet shines 

“An artist’s job is not to answer questions: rather, to pose them,” wrote Anton Chekhov. In this play about friendship, Auburn heeds the Russian playwright’s advice, raising multiple questions: Were these women really friends? They shared some crucial, life-defining moments—but then seemed to drift apart by mutual choice. So were they ever friends to begin with? And what is friendship, anyway? Is it honesty? Is it a shared intimacy in life’s most difficult moments? If so, is that intimacy sustainable? Moreover, since many of their confessions are made to the audience, not to each other, were they ever truly intimate? Is everyone, ultimately, alone?

At the play’s elusive end, Auburn delivers a gut punch. “I’m not sure if I miss the person or the memory of those few months in the 1970s,” says Diana. “It’s not at all a surprise that we didn’t stay close.” 

Summer, 1976. Through June 10 at the Manhattan Theatre Club in the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (251 West 47th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues). www.manhattantheatreclub.com 

Photos: Jeremy Daniel