The fish itself — the one that figures in ads for the new play “Fish in the Dark” and can be seen on the drop curtain at the Cort Theater — is pretty great, a charming and maddening creature destined to capture your heart. O.K., if you insist: It is pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty great.
The show for which this fish stands? Not so much.
If you don’t recognize what all those “prettys” signify, do not feel obliged to read further. (But if you do, I promise to return to the enchanting fish later.) The use of “pretty” as a repeated modifier, with a protracted first syllable and palate-tapping t’s, is a signature catch phrase of Larry David, the beloved comic television writer and actor.
And, yes, Mr. David does make pretty (if not pret-ty, pret-ty) good use of said catchphrase in the second act of “Fish in the Dark,” his Broadway debut as an actor and playwright, which opened on Thursday night. When he pulls out the prettys — as his character describes how it felt to touch a certain part of a certain woman’s anatomy — he lands the biggest laugh of the night.
It’s not the sexual content that elicits the roar. It’s the pleasure of hearing words made familiar on a hit television show, Mr. David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” by the man who first spoke them. Those “prettys” are a bone with a bow tossed to an audience of expectant fans, rather in the manner of the Rolling Stones’ singing “Satisfaction” toward the end of a live concert.
That Mr. David commands such a following is evidenced by the box-office receipts of “Fish,” which has set a record for advance ticket sales for a Broadway play. And for people who feel that it’s enough just to be in the same room as an adored celebrity, this “Fish” — which on paper would seem to teem with the comic tics and turns for which Mr. David is celebrated — may well constitute a full meal.
But let me caution that I have been known to dissolve into incontinent giggles while watching episodes of “Curb” or of “Seinfeld,” the fabled sitcom of which Mr. David was a co-creator. During “Fish,” I laughed fully exactly once. Before I get to the why behind my laughlessness (and while I’m debating whether to tell you the one thing I laughed at, since it’s not that funny secondhand), allow me to return briefly to a happier subject. That’s the goldfish in a light bulb that adorns the poster and program and curtain for Mr. David’s show.
Make the most of the moments before the play begins by staring deep into this creature’s hypnotic saucer eyes. You’ll note that every so often (spoiler alert!) it blinks.
The first time it did so, I thought I was seeing things. But then, yes!, it blinked again. And I spent a fascinated 10 minutes trying to time the blinks, developing a tickling, exasperating, sanity-questioning obsession worthy of the neurotic played by Mr. David (named Larry David) on “Curb.”
That guy bears a passing resemblance to the character played by Mr. David in “Fish,” which is directed dutifully by Anna D. Shapiro, with antiseptic California sets by Todd Rosenthal. In this case, though, his name is Norman Drexel, and instead of working as a Los Angeles television writer and producer, he’s a Los Angeles urinal salesman.
Norman is just one among 18 anxiously antic souls (embodied by the likes of Rita Wilson, Ben Shenkman, Rosie Perez and Jayne Houdyshell) who populate “Fish.” (For the record, that’s still fewer than the number of producers whose names appear above the title in Playbill.)
The plot centers on how badly people often behave when there’s an imminent death in the family. This is not exactly frontier material for Broadway, where we have seen at least two memorable comedies on the same subject in recent years, Horton Foote’s “Dividing the Estate” and Nicky Silver’s “The Lyons.”
Strangely, for a man who has done as much as anyone to redefine the tone of television sitcoms during the past few decades, Mr. David has written a play that, four-letter language aside, feels like a throwback to the mid-1960s, when Neil Simon was king of the punch line. (David Yazbek’s sprightly incidental music summons the same period.)
Anyway, here’s the setup (and don’t stop me if you’ve heard this before). Norman’s father, Sidney (Jerry Adler), on his hospital deathbed, asks with his last breath that one of his sons take care of their mother, Gloria (Ms. Houdyshell).
But which son? Did he mean Norman or his brother, Arthur (Mr. Shenkman)? Neither man wants Mom moving in. Much buck-passing, deception, head-butting and equivocation ensues. And along the way, a bombshell is dropped about Sidney’s secret past, which leads to even more elaborate buck-passing, deception, etc.
More than a few (dozen) vintage sitcoms have used similar plots. Sometimes they were funny. But to be really funny, such stories must be more than the sum of their situations and their zingers. “Fish” gives us archetypes as old as commedia dell’arte and one-liners as old as the Catskills. But credible, breathing, present-tense characters are nowhere to be found.
Much of what made “Curb,” part of which was improvised on set, so great was its aura of extemporaneity, of people (especially Mr. David) inventing far-fetched lies and excuses on the spot to justify bad behavior. (Remember the episode about the last meal for the dying dog?)
Here, that fluidity has hardened into set postures, lines and deliveries, while throwaway humor has been exaggerated in ways that perversely shrink its impact. It doesn’t help that the performances are pitched at different levels.
Broadway regulars like Louis J. Stadlen and Mr. Shenkman read loud and clear, in contrast to screen veterans like Ms. Wilson (as Norman’s wife) and Mr. David, who tend to mumble. Perhaps in compensation, Mr. David has enlarged his gestures, providing semaphoric variations on his classic shrug.
Oh well. The audience I saw the show with seemed pretty, pretty happy and gave Mr. David a big fat kiss of a standing ovation. And for what it’s worth, here’s the joke I thought was funny.
At a post-funeral gathering, a Puerto Rican housekeeper played by Ms. Perez offers some snacks to a man (Jeff Still) she hasn’t met before. “Cuchifritos?” she asks, pointing to a platter. The man extends his hand. “Jay Leventhal,” he answers.
Yeah, I know. You probably have to be there — except in this case you probably don’t.
- http://bit.ly/1NnHsT0
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu