Off-Broadway theater: ‘Daddy’: Alan Cumming leads a sparkling play of ideas

The key to this idea-crammed, emotion-stuffed play lies in its title. Note the quotation marks. Who or what is saying, “Daddy” is both intriguing and heartbreaking. More on this in a minute.

Jeremy O. Harris’ Daddy: A Melodrama follows Slave Play, his earlier hit this season. This young (29, third-year student at Yale School of Drama) playwright is scooping up awards and raves like jellybeans, and if Daddy is a little excessive, it is a youthful, passionate flaw.

And if you want too much, who better than the irresistible Alan Cumming, who can give excess elegance, a sleek sophistication, and do it all in the nude? The reason for the nudity is Andre’s young lover, Franklin (the excellent Ronald Peet), also nude. The excuse for all this visible — and impressive — skin is a pool, deep enough to swim in, one of the many elements in the stunning set (designed by Matt Saunders) that signals Bel Air wealth: Andre is very very rich. The set, with its glass doors and suggestions of tasteful opulence, provides the running gag of Andre turning in the wrong direction to find the kitchen, so vast is his house. At first he seems to be, obviously, Franklin’s sugar daddy.

Andre is an art collector, and big names are dropped as we hear about the major painters whose work he owns. Franklin is an artist in soft sculpture and is struggling with the idea that art ceases to be art as soon as it is owned. This idea of freedom is at odds with his sold-out first solo gallery show; the gallerist (Hari Nef) is convinced they have redeemed art collecting for the contemporary world.

Franklin’s two best friends hang around, enjoying Andre’s sushi and cocaine. Bellamy (Kahyun Kim) is an obviously crazy rich Asian conspicuously consuming designer stuff; she has a sugar daddy of her own, although she is suddenly moved by what may be a genuine relationship more than a quid pro quo deal. He writes her a long letter, but she is unable to read it: “Can anybody read cursive?” What she wants in her own greedy, ditzy way, more than Gucci sunglasses, is family, despite the constant presence of her brother Max (Tommy Dorfman).

But there’s more family: Zora (Charlayne Woodard, whose singing voice is a knockout), Franklin’s mother, a “warrior for Christ,” speaks in long, abrasive sermons, disapproving of Andre and all he stands for. She is accompanied, in Franklin’s mind, by three gospel singers (Carrie Compere, Denise Manning, and Onyie Nwachukwu) as he is drawn further into his infantilized, thumb-sucking past. And here the title takes on larger meaning. Andre wants Franklin to call him Daddy; Franklin wants Andre to call him son. It is revealed that the profound hole in Franklin’s life is the lack of a father, and as he sews clothes for the little dolls he makes, “coon babies” as Zora reminds him they used to be called, he imagines their little voices, his voice, speaking, “Daddy.”

So this is a play about art and race and sex and religion and wealth. Mostly it’s a play about family, and director Danya Taymor gives us three families of three in a fine final tableau.

Through March 31 at the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd Street. Tickets start at $85. Information: TheNewGroup.org.