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Review
All This Intimacy
Second Stage Theatre Uptown (McGinn/Cazale)
August 5, 2006
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org
All This Intimacy by Rajiv Joseph has a big problem other than being totally sitcom, and that is its protagonist - both the character and the actor playing him. Here is a character so amoral that he can't keep his manhood in his pants long enough to say howdy-do to the women he's seducing while at the same time professing undying love for his best friend's soon to be sister-in-law. Believe me, there is nothing wrong with the sexual appetites of healthy young men and of course as we all know, infidelity often goes with that territory (it goes with old men as well for that matter). But this situation is so not new that it almost precludes going into. Where this comedy's laugh track lies is in the sperm potency of the man in question, Ty (Thomas Sadoski). David Newell's somewhat clumsy set otherwise handily reinforces the visuals of such.
Ty unintentionally impregnates not only his girlfriend, Jen (Gretchen Egolf), but his barren neighbor, Maureen (Amy Landecker), who longs to have a child, his college freshman student, Becca (Krysten Ritter), and possibly one other if not more, all within a very brief time span. So there is your situation which may or may not be amusing depending upon your point of view. Mr. Joseph can produce some very funny dialogue but when this sitcom veers into the heavily dramatic two-thirds of the way through, I think the playwright expects us to excuse Ty's egocentrism, much less his questionable morals. I, along with Ty's best friend, Seth (Adam Green), couldn't.
The production delivers to us some fine performances. Ms. Landecker takes the difficult role of Maureen and somehow manages to make her perfectly believable - smart, funny, and honest, even when she has a strangely major transition. Ms. Ritter as Becca cleverly turns your standard airhead into a savvy, bottom line mercenary. The lovely Ms. Egolf, also saddled with a difficult role, keeps Jen afloat with dignity. In the role of Jen's sister, Franny, Kate Nowlin gets off a number of zingers but has a tendency to overplay. The two men in this show do not come off well. Their first scene, the first of the play, is pitched at such hysteria that one is immediately off-put. Mr. Green as Seth all too often earnestly goes for the joke, but he too has been given an exceptionally difficult task when the play turns dramatic. As for Mr. Sadoski, he is an actor who has yet to impress me. For the role of Ty to actually work, the actor must demonstrate charm, intelligence (Ty's not a celebrated poet for nothing) and a kind of Hollywood magnetism. Though not unattractive, Mr. Sadoski is bland from beginning to end. As for Giovanna Sardelli's direction, most of it briskly clips along but with a number of miscalculations.
The Pangaea referred to throughout the play is a strained metaphor about the world and its inhabitants being all one. In Ty's dreams, he is the only man left in a single world of women and it is his duty to repopulate it before it dies out. As presented, that dream seems more of a nightmare. Ask any man in the middle of a paternity suit.
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