C-
Primary Stages’ season opener at the Cherry Lane Theatre is this high-concept comedy of ideas by Scott Carter. The playwright’s main credentials are that he was a stand-up comedian and later a writer/executive producer for Bill Maher’s television show. The play’s concept sounds promising: Imagine Thomas Jefferson (Michael Laurence; Appropriate). Charles Dickens (Duane Boutté; Parade) and Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Thom Sesma; Pacific Overtures) locked together in a room for reasons they do not understand. They appear as they looked at the height of their careers, rather than at the time of death. When they realize that each wrote his own version of the gospel, they think their purpose must be to combine their efforts into a joint work. When that fails, each tries to persuade the other two of the superiority of his own version. Finally, it occurs to them that maybe their real task is to examine their lives and face up to the gaps between their writings and their behavior. It was only at that point, about an hour in, that the play came to life for me and I stopped struggling to stay awake. During their recriminations, poor Jefferson comes in for the roughest treatment. Neither the humor nor the lofty discourse engaged me much. Maybe I nodded off for a crucial moment that would have made all the difference. I doubt it. The production is on the lavish side: a gilded proscenium arch decorated with books frames a red velvet curtain which lifts to reveal Wilson Chin’s (Aubergine) minimalist set of a bare room with a metal table and two chairs. Words are occasionally projected on the back wall. The period costumes by David Hyman (The Treasurer) are excellent. Laurence has a quiet dignity as Jefferson, but Boutté’s Dickens is too much a caricature and Sesma’s Tolstoy barely registers. That this play attracted a director the caliber of Kimberly Senior (Disgraced, The Who and the What) makes me wonder what she saw in it that I missed. Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission.
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