Matthew Broderick is the American everyman in La Jolla Playhouse’s ‘Babbitt’

Sometime after Donald Trump was elected in 2016 but before the pandemic arrived in 2020 — no one quite remembers when — three men met for lunch in an Upper West Side diner in New York, and they talked about a novel they all love.

The Tony-winning companions were film, TV and stage actor Matthew Broderick, playwright Joe DiPietro and La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley. And the book was Sinclair Lewis’ 1922 satiric novel “Babbitt.” It’s the story of a successful real estate agent who begins questioning the meaninglessness of his life and decides to rebel against the middle-class societal mores of the day.

DiPietro had plucked “Babbitt” off his bookshelf that morning and brought it along to pitch to Broderick as a possible theater project they could work on together. Broderick was intrigued, and — as the play slowly developed — Ashley also threw his hat into the ring to direct the piece. Now the fruit of their combined labors has arrived.

On Tuesday, DiPietro’s world premiere stage adaptation of “Babbitt” will open in previews at La Jolla Playhouse, with Broderick playing the title character George F. Babbitt.

Broderick said he was attracted to the project because he loves Sinclair Lewis’ satiric writing style, particularly in the 1929 novel “Dodsworth,” which was later made into a 1936 film starring actor Walter Huston.

“I guess I just like his writing. It’s funny in a subtle and sly way,” Broderick said of Lewis. “When Joe brought up a play, I thought if it can be as good as Walter Huston was in ‘Dodsworth’ then that could be good. And I can relate to (Babbitt’s) stage in life, too.”

DiPietro says he wrote “Babbitt” specifically for Broderick because he thinks the two-time, Tony-winning actor could thread the needle of this very tricky role.

“Babbitt is a man who isn’t an innocent but he has a sweetness to him, even though he starts spouting things that many people would find offensive, both then and now,” DiPietro said. “When the play takes a political turn, we (as an audience) have to make the decision on whether we’re still rooting for him. With Matthew, you always follow him.

“He has a likability and openness and he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body,” DiPietro said of Broderick. “He also has a wryness to him and a sardonic quality that grounds every line he says. He can be wildly funny in the most sly ways possible. And he’s so beloved, for Ferris Bueller alone. It’s a great movie and he’s great in it.”

A multihyphen career

Broderick is now 41 years into his professional acting career, but he remains best known for playing the adorably impish Chicago high school senior Ferris in John Hughes’ 1986 film comedy “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Broderick has said he’s at peace with the knowledge that Ferris will be his legacy, but he has never stopped challenging himself as an actor in the past four decades of work in the theater, movies and streaming television.

Most recently, he starred as Purdue Pharma chief Richard Sackler in the Netflix series “Painkiller,” and he hilariously parodied himself as an over-analytical Broadway actor in season three of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.”

In January, Broderick and his wife of 26 years, “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker, will head to London’s West End to co-star in Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite,” reprising the roles they played last year on Broadway.

Broderick said he’s grateful to have had such a diverse career, because whenever one medium has dried up — like a dip in good movie roles in the ‘90s, the pandemic and the current Screen Actors Guild strike — the stage has always welcomed him back. Now 61, the New York City native grew up in the theater business. His mom, Patricia, was a playwright and his late father, James Broderick, was a stage, film and television actor.

Broderick was 20 years old when he made his off Broadway debut in Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy.” After that, he alternated between roles in films like “WarGames” and Broadway plays like Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Biloxi Blues” (which earned him his first Tony Award). Then “Ferris Bueller” came along and made him a major star.

Broderick went on to lead multiple movies in the ‘80s and ‘90s, including “Glory,” “The Freshman,” “The Cable Guy,” “Election” and “The Lion King” (where he was the voice of adult Simba).

Then, after a 10-year break from the stage, he returned in 1994 — heading up La Jolla Playhouse’s musical revival of “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” under the direction of Des McAnuff. A year later, the show opened on Broadway and earned Broderick his second Tony Award. Six years later, he and Nathan Lane would become the toast of Broadway in Mel Brooks’ “The Producers.”

Broderick said he loves making movies but there’s nothing like the exhilaration and backstage camaraderie he experiences in a play or musical.

“There’s something about us all being in that green room at a theater night after night. I think the feeling that you do the whole thing at once is very satisfying. In movies you dribble on and then it stops. You never get the catharsis,” he said. “I also really do like an audience. In a comedy you can tell when something is the right direction to go in. They let you know. There’s something about a big group of people that’s very frightening and can be very encouraging.”

‘Babbittry’

While most Americans today may not remember Sinclair Lewis or “Babbitt,” the novel, and a subsequent 1934 movie adaptation, made such a splash during the Depression era and beyond that the word “Babbitt” became part of the cultural lexicon. “Babbittry” was used to describe middle-class conformity or narrow-minded materialism.

DiPietro said that while the book was written in the early 1920s, it was prescient in how it satirized politics and populism.

“In ‘Babbitt,’ Sinclair Lewis created a fictional town called Zenith, which was supposed to embody the best of middle-class capitalist Christian White values of America in 1922,” DiPietro said. “Babbitt starts giving speeches and people start reacting to the jingoistic, anti-immigrant take he has on things. Politicians are saying the same things today with slightly altered language. It’s about how a middle-aged man who has never felt heard in his life suddenly starts spouting right-wing dogma that sound a little crazy and becomes wildly popular.”

That may sound very much like the rise of our previous U.S. president, but Babbitt’s trajectory is different. As he becomes more enlightened, Babbitt begins moving away from capitalism toward socialism, but that journey is so shocking to his family and community that he faces losing everything.

Broderick said Babbitt is a man whose central feature is conformity and in his effort to not conform he nearly wrecks his life. For the love of his family, Babbitt is forced to make a brutal choice and personal sacrifice.

“It’s kind of noble in a way,” Broderick said. “There’s levity in it. It is a little sad, too. But it has hope in the ending.”

Meeting of the minds

Broderick and DiPietro first worked together in 2012, when Broderick starred in the Broadway musical “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” which features a Tony-winning book by DiPietro and score by George and Ira Gershwin.

Interestingly, it was through an earlier version of this same musical that DiPietro and Ashley met 22 years ago and became friends and collaborators. In 2001, the musical — then named “They All Laughed!” — was about to start rehearsals at Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut when the original director dropped out.

Although he didn’t know Ashley at the time, DiPietro knew his reputation as one of the busiest directors in the business and was eager to bring him in. Through a mutual friend, Ashley reluctantly agreed to look at the script, liked it, and agreed to come in and take over the show.

“We just clicked,” DiPietro said of their relationship. They have since partnered on the musicals “Memphis,” “All Shook Up” and “Diana” and the play “Hollywood.” The Playhouse-born “Memphis” won DiPietro his second Tony Award. Ashley won the 2017 Tony Award for his direction of the Playhouse-born musical “Come From Away.” And next season at the Playhouse, Ashley will direct “3 Summers of Lincoln,” a musical for which DiPietro is writing the book and co-writing the lyrics.

“I love working with people who I really have a history with and shorthand with,” DiPietro said. “Chris and I, we both like to talk about every moment of the show. We often agree, but not always. And when he questions a line or moment or motivation, I know it’s something I should at least think about. He is one of those people I ask him to read a draft every time I write something. He’s also super smart and a great director, but very kind.”

“Babbitt” features a cast of seven actors. They include Broadway actor Genevieve Angelson (“Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike”); Emmy nominee Anna Chlumsky (“Veep”); Julie Halston (“Sex and the City”); Ann Harada (Broadway’s “Avenue Q”); Matt McGrath (La Jolla Playhouse’s “His Girl Friday”); Francis Jue (the Playhouse’s “Wild Goose Dreams”); and Chris Myers (off Broadway’s “An Octoroon”).

DiPietro said that the play has a blue-chip cast and, like Ashley, Broderick is a benevolent company leader.

“He’s certainly in the lead role, but ‘Babbitt’ is an ensemble piece. Matthew’s stage presence and his rehearsal presence is extremely amiable,” DiPietro said. “I’ve never seen him snap at anyone or do the star diva thing.”

Broderick said it would be “thrilling” if “Babbitt” is successful enough to move on to New York someday. But that couldn’t happen until next summer because Broderick and Parker will fly to London in January for a limited run of “Plaza Suite.” He said their twin 14-year-old daughters, Tabitha and Marion, will attend the play’s opening night.

Asked how performing together onstage affected their home life and marriage, Broderick said he was pleasantly surprised at how well he and his wife got along during the 2022 run of “Plaza Suite.”

“It was much easier than I would have thought to work and perform together. It was really a pleasure,” he said. “She likes to get to the theater earlier than I do, so we didn’t go together, but that was about it. I thought it would be too much time and we’d drive each other crazy. But it was a pleasure and that’s why we’re doing it again.”

‘Babbitt’

When: Previews Tuesday through Saturday. Opens Nov. 12 and runs through Dec. 10. Showtimes, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays

Where: Mandell Weiss Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla

Tickets: $25-$109

Phone: (858) 550-1010

Online: lajollaplayhouse.org