A Better Place

Despite several decent aspects of this show, I could not shake the feeling that I was mis-sold on what I was going to see and it was not overcome by what I actually saw.

The show is sold as a comedy about New York Real Estate - Love, Lust, and the crazy, life-is-always greener across the street aspect of the crazy real estate market in NYC.   I thought it might be a bit like Playwrights Horizons' Assistants or perhaps Michael Urie in Buyer & Cellar.  What I got instead was a rather repetitive, snooze of a show that simply plotted poor rent-controlled brownstone renters in Brooklyn situated across from a modern, all glass and steel high-rise across the street.  They watch the supposedly rich family across the street and envision their life.  The rich family across the street is anything but.  They are poor, loud, and common.  The husband gambles, the wife is a maid with high class dreams and the daughter is dumb as a box of rocks who gets excited when real estate brokers talk "dirty amenities" to her.

Casting seemed a hodge-podge of mix and match talents.  Judith Hawking (Mary Roberts) was a fairly decent over-bearing (and over-acting) mother.  Edward James Hyland (John Roberts) didn't seem like a carpenter but could have been a a gambler.  Rob Mitner (Les Coven) was a convincing over-the-top gay cater-waiter with a dash of drama queen but was paired with a much too old John Fitzbibbon (Sel Trevoe) as a professor in purportedly his rent-controlled shoe-box.  Jessica Digiovanni (Carol Roberts) had little to work with in the material except that she was dumb and a sexpot.  Michael Satow aptly worked the various broker boys, doorman, and waiter.  He was perhaps the best looking and most versatile actor (and by far the cutest) of all despite, again, his lack of any decent material to work with.

I might have been mildly amused if this show was 60 minutes but it was 30 minutes more of the repetitive "I wish we were them" and "I'm going to the track" and "Talk dirty to me" dialogue.  There were several scenes that were absolutely out of left field - Why did poor guy's father leave? and The restaurant scene and the hospital scene.  Waaaay too long, waaaay to repetitive.  Add in a lost briefcase of cash, a much too old professor for his young cater-waiter boyfriend, and horse racing and all you've got is a hot mess of a show with little entertainment value.

One bight spot in this production was the set - an innovative split-set depicting actors on both sides of the street.  The audience was also situated on two opposite sides of the theatre thus creating the peeping Tom effect for both the actors and the audience. Kudos David L. Arsenault.

Stick to the Sunday Times for your real estate fantasies.  This show won't fulfill any of them.

Close Up Space

Molly Smith Metzler is an award winning playwright from Brooklyn and she's written a charmer that is now being presented at Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) on the small stage at NY City Center.

The play, Close Up Space, revolves around Paul (David Hyde Pierce), an intelligent literary editor and his estranged and odd daughter, Harper (Colby Minifie).  The title cleverly refers to an editing/proof-reading symbol - as in "shorten this up and remove some words (the verb to close, pronounced with a 'z').  You learn fairly early that something is amiss with his family and his daughter is quite upset with his actions.  Throw in a Saturday Night Live-like office manager, Steve (Michael Chernus), a well-published spit-fire (albeit mis-cast) author, Vanessa Finn Adams (Rosie Perez), and an innocent and smartly cast office intern, Bailey (Jessica DiGiovanni) and you have the makings of a sweet treat.

However in making that sweet treat, if you use the wrong ingredients or switch the salt for sugar you're in for a disaster.  Such is the case under the reign of Barry Grove at MTC.  Ms. Perez, while entertaining, is an over-used, mis-cast character actress in the role.  Mr. Chernus, while very funny and his character's arc cleverly designed, was overly so - to a point beyond satire to that of absurdity and farce.  Ms. Minifie's defects were perhaps one of the few that can be associated with the author  - taking the "I've been exiled to Siberia" analogy way too far.   David Hyde Pierce worked his magical reactions, facial expressions, and character acting the entire time and essentially rescued this one from falling into the abyss.

Mr. Grove - your audience is somewhere between 40 and death... much closer to the latter, i estimate (maybe because your subscriptions are relatively cheap) and your play selection, while admirable, just haven't seem to cut it in the past few cycles.  David Hyde Pierce may just have prevented this one from becoming the next one to fall off the cliff, but you've got to to a little better or once the purple haired audience ends up in those coffins, you're going to have a lot of empty seats in those wonderful theaters you manage.