Devilish Sex Comedy ‘The Cottage’ Comes To Broadway

With sex, smoking, exquisite scenic design, and an astonishing laughs-per-minute ratio, “The Cottage” is a romp, a picture-perfect parody of a Noel Coward comedy of manners — with a fresh, modern sensibility and a healthy dose of absurdity.

It also raises the roof with what is surely the most stupendous fart joke Broadway has seen for some time.

Starring Eric McCormack, Laura Bell Bundy, Lilli Cooper, Nehal Joshi, Alex Moffat, and Dana Steingold, “The Cottage” marks Jason Alexander’s Broadway directorial debut. Playwright Sandy Rustin, who also wrote the stage adaptation of the cult classic “Clue,” spoke with Forbes ahead of the show’s opening tonight, at the Helen Hayes Theater.

Sandy, it’s exciting that a smart and fun comedy is headed for Broadway this season. What most excites you about “The Cottage” playing to a large Broadway house?

Having the opportunity to bring an evening of laughter to audiences right now feels like a real gift. After the last few years of collective societal stress and anxiety, for me to now be able to sit amongst the crowd, night after night, surrounded by their peals of laughter, is a dream come true. It has been incredibly rewarding to watch audiences embrace the respite this play provides.

What inspired you to write a Noel Coward-esque play set in 1923?

I’d been a long-time fan of British “bedroom comedies” but noticed that the female characters in those plays were often in service to male-centric stories. I was curious what would happen if I tried to create a comedy inspired by those plays, where the female characters were actually central to the story — where the audience gets to watch women evolve — still steeped within their period in history — beyond the male gaze, while still maintaining the stylized, comedy of the genre.

The first real wave of feminism in the UK (and the US) had bubbled into the conversation of every woman — all classes — by 1923. The Equal Rights Amendment had just been proposed in Congress in the U.S., and women in the U.K. were paying attention. I thought it would be interesting to set the women in this play right at the cusp of change for women’s rights and women’s advocacy.

How does your time and experience with the Upright Citizens Brigade inform your playwriting?

My time at UCB was a continuation of my upbringing in Chicago, where I’d been immersed in the improv and sketch comedy world since childhood. Where other families listened to music in the car, my dad played comedy albums. I grew up absorbing the rhythms of jokes. At age seven, I had Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine memorized. There is a certain playfulness and collaborative spirit that is integral to improv and sketch comedy. I think having those disciplines as my foundation has allowed me to carry that kind of “let’s have fun together” energy into my writing.

Jason Alexander is directing. What are your impressions of him so far as a director?

Jason is one of the funniest comic actors of my generation. Having a front row seat to his Broadway debut as a director has been a thrill. His ability to zero in on “the funny” is unmatched!