My Variety Review: Broadway's 'Take Me Out' With Jesse Williams, Jesse Tyler Ferguson

Public and personal identities are constantly being examined, teased and tested in Richard Greenberg’s “Take Me Out,” his grand paean to baseball and ontological quandaries, which is receiving a starry and satisfying Second Stage revival at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway.

It’s been 20 years since the play first stunned audiences with its rich writing, provocative themes and a locker room full of naked men. (And still an active major league player has yet to step up to the bat and come out as gay.)

Directed by Scott Ellis, this revival, too, is a solid hit, despite a few grounding errors. It should also prove to be popular for all market segments, especially with its triple-play of television favorites: two who are taking their Broadway bows for the first time, along with a beloved stage veteran.

Jesse Williams, a popular star of “Grey’s Anatomy,” is impressive as the embodiment of charisma and cool, Darren Lemming, a biracial, superstar hitter of the New York Empires (read Yankees). When the seemingly self-assured, Teflon-coated slugger nonchalantly announces he is gay, it sets in motion a series of events that ultimately reveal more than the players imagined about themselves.

The storyline moves forward — and sometimes effectively backward — with narration by erudite teammate Kippy Sunderstrom (a personable Patrick J. Adams of TV’s “Suits,” who makes the most of the wry and observant shortstop).

But it’s the arrival of Darren’s new, nebbishy money manager, Mason Marzac (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) — a lonely, sports-averse, older gay man who gets swept up in the glory of the game — that elevates the play to a league of its own, giving it both….|CONTINUED|