Just like the Eskimos have 50 words to describe snow, Playwright, Michael Weller suggests that we should have the same to describe love. Norbert Leo Butz (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Is he Dead?) and Elizabeth Marvel (Top Girls, Seascape, Hedda Gabler) take the helm at the Lucille Lortel Theatre as Adam and Jan, a seemingly ordinary couple with one child living in Brooklyn who end up alone for one evening for the first time in 9 years due to their son's first sleep-over with a friend.
What ensues on stage is a Lifetime-movie-like drama of a husband and wife who have issues that have been simmering under the surface for years including self esteem, dreams forgone, insecurities, annoyances, and infidelity. The dialogue is cutting, acerbic, and honest. The play does not skirt the issues; does not dance around the core issues. It lays them all out bare on stage for the audience to absorb. On more than one occasion, a gasp, a sigh, and even a few affirmations and "um-hmm's" were quietly emoted from the audience.
In the short 100 minutes we ride the extremes of the ups and downs. We move fluidly from the fighting to the mind-blowing sex to the instinctual and unconditional concern for the child and back to the fighting again. No holds bared in this one. All the while, love itself simmers below the surface. Two sensational performances by two Broadway juggernauts. If I try hard enough, I'm sure I can come up with 50 reasons to see this one!