{"id":2279913,"date":"2026-02-13T04:01:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T04:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2279913"},"modified":"2026-02-13T04:01:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T04:01:33","slug":"sean-hayes-stars-in-a-lazy-off-broadway-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/sean-hayes-stars-in-a-lazy-off-broadway-thriller\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Hayes stars in a lazy off-Broadway thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F02%2Fnewspress-collage-s3dk2t6vq-1770931522333.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261770913577\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--review alignleft\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n\t\t<span class=\"inline-module--review__eyebrow subsection-heading-semi__label\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tTheater review\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"inline-module--review__title subsection-heading-semi\">\n\t\t\tTHE UNKNOWN\t\t<\/h2>\n<div class=\"rating\">\n<div class=\"rating__stars\">\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--filled\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 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stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--empty\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--empty\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>70 minutes, with no intermission. At Studio Seaview.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>During the first season of the NBC sit-com \u201cWill &amp; Grace,\u201d Sean Hayes\u2019 character Jack created a one-man cabaret show for himself succinctly called \u201cJust Jack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 30 years later, the actor-turned-podcaster finally has a solo effort in real life \u2014 \u201cThe Unknown\u201d by David Cale. However, the play, which opened Thursday night at Studio Seaview, could be titled \u201cJust OK.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a suspense drama, in intent more so than effect, that moves at a rapid clip while being highly uncertain of where it\u2019s going, much like a confused newcomer to the story\u2019s setting \u2014 Manhattan\u2019s twisty West Village.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, that nabe\u2019s twists are more fun than this play\u2019s. At least you might wind up somewhere cool.<\/p>\n<p>In a departure for the typically taut, heart-racing genre, \u201cThe Unknown,\u201d directed by Leigh Silverman, starts out tense, loses its bearings and sputters to an open-ended finale.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--columnist inline-module--more--thirds\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<h2 class=\"inline-module__heading subsection-heading subsection-heading--single-line \">\n\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"subsection-heading__sub\">Johnny Oleksinski<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Hayes plays Elliott, a lonely, single playwright with writer\u2019s block. That\u2019s a tee-ball-easy set-up if there ever was one. Needing inspiration, Elliott heads to his friend\u2019s remote country house, where one night he faintly hears an eerie song in the distance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s called \u201cI Wish You Wanted Me\u201d from a musical he\u2019d written years earlier. What\u2019s spooky is that he can\u2019t locate the anonymous crooner in the woods.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, in the theater seats, our uneasy sensation comes from the fact that the melody closely resembles \u201cSing once again with me our strange duet!\u201d from Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s \u201cThe Phantom of the Opera.\u201d Good thing there are no giant chandeliers to come crashing down at Studio Seaview.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Sean Hayes plays Elliott and others in \u201cThe Unknown\u201d off-Broadway. <span class=\"credit\">Emilio Madrid<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When Elliott arrives back to his apartment on Bank Street, the first of a few half-gasps arrives: A piece of paper with the words \u201cI wish you wanted me\u201d scrawled on it is taped to his front door. Is he being stalked? And \u2014 lightbulb! \u2014 is this frightening scenario the perfect idea for the script he needs to write?<\/p>\n<p>Already \u201cThe Unknown\u201d begins to unravel. A character willingly putting himself in extreme peril while attempting to solve a mystery for the sake of a good yarn is frankly a bit \u201cNancy Drew\u201d for me. And, though dubbed a thriller, the play is too capering and sparse on details to make any viewer sweat, let alone jump. Scary, it is not. <\/p>\n<p>Hayes, unsurprisingly, fares better with jokes and funny glances than paralyzing dread.<\/p>\n<p>The actor won his first Tony Award in 2023 for playing witty pianist Oscar Levant in \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/04\/24\/good-night-oscar-review-sean-hayes-stars-in-off-key-play\/\">Good Night, Oscar,<\/a>\u201d which took full advantage of his comic (and musical) strengths.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cale\u2019s show forces the actor to pare down his ticks and tricks.<\/p>\n<p>True, he theatrically pops into several roles this time, including the narrator, his friend Larry, Larry\u2019s soft-spoken wife Chloe, a forward Texan named Keith he meets in Julius\u2019 bar and others. But Hayes is admirably calmer and less mannered than he was on Broadway.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Elliott\u2019s writer\u2019s block is cured by a possible stalker. <span class=\"credit\">Emilio Madrid<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That said, his chosen voices for the non-Elliott parts can be rather brow-raising. <\/p>\n<p>For instance, Larry, the pal he once had feelings for, gets a throaty Walter Cronkite brogue. Who has the hots for Walter Cronkite? And his British accent for another person gives Dick Van Dyke newfound reason to hold his head high.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Hayes is good enough, and ticket buyers like him. The play\u2019s the problem. The side characters are lifelessly written, and the plot doesn\u2019t add to or reinvent the airport paperback cliches it\u2019s built from. Oh, look, an intruder sitting on a chair in the dark. Where have I seen that before? Everywhere! \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cThe Unknown\u201d starts out tense, slackens and sputters to an open-ended finale.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Cale, the usually excellent monologist, has become a James Patterson of late, penning thriller after thriller as the quality descends. In 2017, his \u201cHarry Clarke,\u201d about an American man who pretends to be British, was much more original and satisfying.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And his brave 2019 semi-autobiographical solo show, \u201cWe\u2019re Only Alive For a Short Amount of Time,\u201d hinged on one of the most shocking revelations I\u2019ve ever experienced on any stage.<\/p>\n<p>Next to those, \u201cThe Unknown\u201d is an altogether sedate sit, sporadically livened up by the presence of its marquee star.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps one could argue that Cale\u2019s latest, in which mimicry and stolen identities play a major part, is devoid of personality by design. The ending would suggest that the play itself might be borrowing from others as well. I even wondered if that repeated \u201cI wish you wanted me\u201d tune was made to sound like \u201cPhantom\u201d on purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Is imitation the highest form of flattery? Maybe. But \u201cThe Unknown\u201d is simply flat.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theater review THE UNKNOWN 70 minutes, with no intermission. At Studio Seaview. During the first season of the NBC sit-com \u201cWill &amp; Grace,\u201d Sean Hayes\u2019 character Jack created a one-man cabaret show for himself succinctly called \u201cJust Jack.\u201d Nearly 30 years later, the actor-turned-podcaster finally has a solo effort in real life \u2014 \u201cThe Unknown\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2279914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[21741,383632,363951,24047,345886],"class_list":["post-2279913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-entertainment","tag-off-broadway","tag-sean-hayes","tag-theater","tag-theater-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sean-Hayes-stars-in-a-lazy-off-Broadway-thriller.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2279913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2279915,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279913\/revisions\/2279915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2279914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2279913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2279913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2279913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}