Second Stage Theatre
New York
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Zach Braff has “clearly not strayed from his comfort zone” in his debut as a playwright, said Mark Kennedy in the Associated Press. The former star of TV’s Scrubs and writer-director of the 2004 movie Garden State recycles numerous elements from his past work in this dark comedy about four quirky millennials. The show opens as Justin Bartha, playing “a charisma-less mope” named Charlie, is preparing to hang himself in an empty beach house—only to be interrupted by a talkative real estate agent who’s showing the property to prospective renters. Soon, two other characters drop by—a firefighter who is also the local drug dealer, and a ditzy prostitute sent by a friend to cheer up poor Charlie.
Not one of these would-be “new people” is “a particularly novel character invention,” said Marilyn Stasio in Variety. But Braff has figured out that “if you can’t be original, at least be amusing.” He has a knack for writing funny lines, and the central gag here is that none of these attractive, winsome 21st-century narcissists can make a move or express an emotion without first considering how it will play to the people around them. They have no depth, except perhaps for the “profound alienation that governs their aimless lives” and sometimes peeks through their acts.
Still, the playwright’s inexperience is painfully apparent, said Charles Isherwood in The New York Times. His decision to use film footage to fill in the characters’ backstories feels like a cheat—even when the clips are entertaining. Yet “under the smartly brisk direction of Peter DuBois,” the cast covers up some of the script’s weaknesses with “winning, sharply drawn comic performances.” Anna Camp “brings animation and warmth” to Braff’s predictably dim-witted hooker, and even Bartha, the play’s straight man, finds “enough fresh notes in Charlie’s irritation to hold his own among the more antic comic characters.” Working with a slight script, the actors have created a night of theater that’s “consistently and sometimes sensationally funny.”
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