{"id":207333,"date":"2026-04-23T16:05:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T16:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/207333\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T16:05:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T16:05:33","slug":"in-what-happened-was-cecily-strong-and-corey-stoll-cook-up-a-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/207333\/","title":{"rendered":"In \u2018What Happened Was \u2026,\u2019 Cecily Strong and Corey Stoll Cook Up a Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noonan, who died in February at 74<\/a>, played Michael in the first stage production of \u201cWhat Happened Was \u2026\u201d opposite Karen Sillas as Jackie, both reprising their roles for the 1994 movie adaptation that won the grand jury prize at that year\u2019s Sundance Film Festival.<\/p>\n

Outside the bounds of this revival thrum the backbeat of Manhattan books and movies of its original era, and their stories of obsession, ambition and love \u2014 \u201cFatal Attraction,\u201d \u201cBright Lights, Big City\u201d and \u201cWorking Girl\u201d \u2014 with \u201cWhat Happened Was \u2026\u201d revealing a lower-key, harsher truth of New York living. It\u2019s a city that Jackie, like Michael, relishes viewing from her window, yet feels separate from.<\/p>\n

Stoll and Strong spikily excel at playing Michael and Jackie\u2019s nervy dinner roller coaster, joshing, misreading, then comprehending each other. Their alternating bafflement, suspicion and empathy reveal the rewarding yet perilous cost of honesty. As with Audible\u2019s other repertory productions \u2014 including the return of \u201cSexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes,\u201d starring Hugh Jackman and Ella Beatty (through April 30) \u2014 \u201cWhat Happened Was \u2026\u201d offers the opportunity to see big-name actors perform in a compact theater.<\/p>\n

Just as in his Tony-nominated role in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins\u2019s \u201cAppropriate,\u201d Stoll subverts his charismatic physicality to play a fractured, adrift man. Strong, from \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d is both wittily goading and movingly soul-baring, inhaling wine and cognac while wielding a knife to cut a birthday cake in a moment that teeters between comically giddy and slightly unhinged.<\/p>\n

Music provides a balm to both co-workers. The play begins with an excited Jackie playing Carole King\u2019s \u201cI Feel the Earth Move,\u201d then later, post-confessionals, Joni Mitchell\u2019s \u201cA Case of You.\u201d Michael recalls, at age 13, listening to the Beatles\u2019 \u201cShe Loves You,\u201d imagining his own name being woven into the lyrics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Noonan, who died in February at 74, played Michael in the first stage production of \u201cWhat Happened Was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[47624,82202,82204,82199,9,82205,56,63,65,64,82203,82201,82200,905,82206],"class_list":["post-207333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-cecily","tag-corey","tag-ian","tag-minetta-lane-theater","tag-new-york","tag-noonan","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-rickson","tag-stoll","tag-strong","tag-theater","tag-tom-1951-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}