Six Degrees of Separation

I saw Stockard Channing do this play on Broadway, and it remains one of the best theater experiences ever. It's really the story of her character Ouisa gradually seeing that her life is just pretty surfaces, and in meeting this young con-man with whom she makes an intense emotional connection, that she wants more than her marriage, her friends, her life. The dialogue goes like the wind and you barely get a chance to catch your breath; some of the dialogue is spoken as a soliloquy. It's John Guare's mastery of the language at its best, better than "The House of Blue Leaves." I'm much more of a movie person than a theater person, but this play really sang.

Unfortunately the translation to film is only partially successful. Whereas the play is a spoken confessional of Oiusa Kitteridge, the movie emphasizes Paul (Will Smith). Smith does a good-to-great job with this character. The transition from a verbal to a visual medium robs the language of much of its power, and rather than re-write it as a movie, it's sort of a 'half-transition,' which doesn't really please anyone. The other problem I had with it was Donald Sutherland; who wasn't half-bad. But John Cunningham, who played the role on Broadway, was sharper, harder, a GAMBLER...Sutherland just comes across as a nice guy that gets a bit upset that he's been conned. And the emotional blow that comes at the end of the play when you realize that Oiusa's perfect marriage is falling apart just doesn't come across.

Still fascinating for its premise and worth a look; even this watered-down version never fails to entertain.

A film that had its moments, like that wonderful monologue about Catcher in the Rye, or the distress someone feels about how real experiences dissolve into future anecdotes. It also provides a nice bit of satire about the wealthy, their entitled offspring, and their delusions about their own racial tolerance.

Unfortunately, it's also one of the more affected scripts, with dialogue that ventures beyond just stagey (obviously coming from a play) and into exaggeration. There is real pathos at the bottom of this story, but it's undercut by so much of what we see not feeling real.

"Mom told me you were a rotten lover and drank so much your body smelled of cheap white wine!" a son bellows at his father over the phone. "I was so happy, I wanted to add sex to it," the con-man says in a sing-song voice to explain why he brought a lover up to the rich couple's apartment. There are many other examples of groan-worthy lines.

I have to say, the film also doesn't do a very good job with its title concept, that we're separated from everyone on the planet by six other people. It's just stated as something a character has read, without an example or further discussion. It's in there I suppose as a way of highlighting the empathy the wealthy should be feeling for the young man who has tried to wheedle into their world, as "close" as the human hive is supposed to be, but that felt more forced than satisfying to me.

I liked the performances from Will Smith and Stockard Channing, and I liked the creativity (dare I say imagination) it showed in the second half. Once we know there's a con across multiple people going on, a more conventional film would have gone through the drama of what was being stolen (like maybe a switcharoo of those expensive paintings for fakes) and how the guy would get caught (following a cat and mouse game with a savvy detective). In this one, we don't know at all what direction it will take. Overall, kind of an odd film, but worth seeing.

The pampered rich folk of Manhattan get skewered alive in this elegant adaptation of John Guare's hit play. Based on an amazing true story, the film concerns a wealthy Manhattan couple (Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland) whose lives are turned upside down when a young black man (Will Smith) who claims to be a friend of their children's drops in after having been attacked in the park. He says he's Sidney Poitier's son, cooks up a gourmet meal, quotes "Catcher in the Rye," and endears himself to this couple. As the film progresses, one stunning event after another occurs, culminating in a beautifully cathartic ending. Sutherland gives one of his best performances, but it is the luminescent Channing who steals the movie. It is so nice to see this gifted actress -- looking more beautiful than ever -- in the lead as opposed to playing someone's best friend. Her impeccable timing and innate charm elevate an already dazzling screenplay to heights unimaginable. "Six Degrees of Separation" is as witty, thoughtful, and relevant as any film made the entire decade.

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION is an outstanding play transformed to the screen with dignity but with a script that keeps us in the live theatre instead of in a motion picture. Not that that is a bad thing: the script by John Guare is brilliant. It simply seems a little static, with its marvelous plays on words, repeated phrases, and disjointed movements significant unto themselves but not really taking advantage of cinematic possibilities of flow.

Essentially the tale of how a married couple who deal art (Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland - both in peak form) are so caught up in their superficial lives that they are taken in by a handsome young African American con artist (Will Smith) whose various antics bring the couple round to reexamining their shallow existence. Most of the story is related over art dealings and dinner conversations and are peopled by such luminaries as Kitty Carlisle, Ian McKellen, artists Chuck Close and Kazuko, Mary Beth Hurt, Bruce Davidson etc - a really fine ensemble. There are many social comments clustered in this story and it continues to play well after its origins on the stage and fifteen years after the movie was made. This was one of Will Smith's entries into film as well as one of the gifted Stockard Channing's finest roles. Highly recommended for repeated viewings. Grady Harp

Six Degrees' Inspiration Hampton Dies Sat Jul 19, 3:14 PM ET

By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - This was no stage production, and there was no happy ending.

David Hampton, the ersatz son of Sidney Poitier whose pursuit of the glamorous life inspired the award-winning play "Six Degrees of Separation," died last month in a decidedly desolate fashion: alone in a Manhattan hospital bed, friends confirmed Saturday.

"David, like many of us, had a real need to be somebody important and special," said attorney and close friend Susan Tipograph. "He did stuff to be somebody in his mind ? somebody important, somebody fabulous.

"To me, he was fabulous."

The black teenager earned notoriety by charming his way into New York's white upper crust, presenting himself in 1983 as the Oscar-winning Poitier's son and a Harvard University student. The scam inspired John Guare's acclaimed play and a movie starring Will Smith.

The reality was quite different: Hampton came from a middle-class home in Buffalo, a city he once dismissed as lacking anyone "glamorous or fabulous or outrageously talented." His father was an attorney, not an actor.

Hampton, 39, died at Beth Israel Hospital, Tipograph said. He had been living in a small room at an AIDS residence, and was trying to start work on a book about his life.

Hampton was glib, charming, funny ? the skills of the consummate con man. He talked his way into the homes of several prominent New Yorkers, including the dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the president of public television station WNET.

Once there, he reveled in the posh surroundings and fancy meals. He accepted money and clothes and regaled his hosts with stories about his famous "father."

"David took a great joy in living the life he lived," said attorney Ronald Kuby, who knew Hampton for more than a decade. "It was performance art on the world's smallest possible stage, usually involving an audience of only one or two."

After he was taken into custody in October 1983, police said Hampton had six previous arrests in New York and Buffalo. Hampton, just 19, pleaded guilty to attempted burglary and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

Guare, inspired by the bizarre tale, opened his play in 1990 to immediate critical praise. It won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, an Obie, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

But on the day the play was nominated for four Tony Awards, a court order was issued telling Hampton to stay away from Guare, who said he'd been threatened.

Hampton felt entitled to a cut of the cash generated by his "work," and he sued ? unsuccessfully ? for a $100 million piece of the play's profits in 1992. There was victory in the defeat: It introduced him to another of Manhattan's bright lights, radical lawyer William Kunstler.

Hampton was later arrested for leaving this message on Guare's answering machine: "I would strongly advise you that you give me some money or you can start counting your days." A jury acquitted him of harassment.

"I think he felt used by Mr. Guare," said Tipograph. "I'll let history judge that."

The 1993 movie version of the play earned Stockard Channing an Oscar nomination for best actress. Channing recreated her stage performance as a wealthy Manhattanite taken in by the scam artist.

In recent years, Hampton kept in touch with friends and stayed in trouble: He faced charges of fare-beating and credit-card theft. One alleged victim told The New York Times that Hampton, using the name David Hampton-Montilio, duped him out of more than $1,400 in October 2001.

"When pretending to be somebody else, he dazzled people," Kuby said. "For an evening or a couple of days, he mesmerized people by bringing them into his totally fictitious world of stardom."