80’s Silver Screen Siren Rebecca De Mornay Falls Short In Stage Comeback With Off-Broadway’s The Pushover

 

Rebecca De Mornay’s acting career broke out in her 1982 film, Risky Business, playing the prostitute love interest opposite a then-unknown Tom Cruise. Her best role followed a few years later as an alluring, sexy, manipulative killer in a cautionary tale, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. It was with curiosity that I went to see her perform on stage in The Pushover, an off-Broadway play. Unfortunately, this does not look to be the stage for her to recapture some of her glory.

The Pushover is a play about three dysfunctional women who collide at a spa in New Mexico, and a bare-bones Asian restaurant in Queens. They speak the language of the outcast, rough and sexual, and fight to survive, and to love. But each is dangerously flawed and not fully capable of understanding themselves as well as they think they see others.  

It ambitiously tries to make strong statements amidst a lesbian love triangle gone bad, about the good and evil in everyone, whether we really can change who we are, the role of faith and forgiveness in our lives, and the challenges of love. However, a blend of dialogue shortfalls and disconnected acting dooms this play. While watching the scenes unfold, I was too aware they were acting and that their characters weren’t real. It lacked the gritty authenticity it desperately tried to create. 

The play, performed at New York City's intimate Chain Theatre, is the production of ​John Patrick Shanley and directed by Kirk Gostkowski. It was particularly disappointing to not see a stronger script from Shanley, who had won an Academy Award, Tony Award, and a Pulitzer Prize for prior works.

The play does make theatre-goers think. It challenges our assumptions about how far we may go to forgive those who hurt us. Could any of us turn out to be a pushover when love is at play? 

It also leaves us wondering why the duo of interesting themes and a talented headline actress fall short.

About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 5,850,000 page views. With 5,600+ posts over the past 14 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs  by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2026.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum