A Life
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Cititour.com Review
Plays where even a seasoned theater critic, never mind your average audience member, doesn’t see the big “twist” coming in advance are now fewer and far between. So the talented Adam Bock decidedly deserves commendation for pulling off this too-rare feat in “A Life,” now at Playwrights Horizons under the direction of Anne Kauffman.
But more than a mere stunt, this surprising 85-minute piece also makes us think seriously about the importance of love, friends, luck, and time. And, perhaps best of all, it gives us the first of two chances this season to the see the great David Hyde Pierce on stage. (He returns in the spring as Horace Vandergelder opposite Bette Midler in the much-anticipated revival of “Hello, Dolly.”)
Most of the show’s first half is taken up by a lengthy monologue by our protagonist, Nate Martin (Pierce), a single 56-year-old gay proofreader in a modest New York City apartment (beautifully rendered by Laura Jellinek), who wonders just how he got to this particularly less-than-ideal stage in life. He’s clearly expected more, especially since he believed the astrological chart he was gifted with some decades back was a true roadmap to his future. (The opening section of the show is also a good introduction to those unfamiliar with anything more than New York Post-style astrology). And, as he tells us humbly, he’s certainly had his chances in the “love” department. (I never quite pictured Mr. Pierce, even in his younger days, as a lothario, but he makes the scenario convincing.)
So why is he sitting all alone in his room, talking to us? Why did his latest boyfriend, Mark, break up with him? Does he, as his group therapy members supposedly ask him, have a fear of intimacy? Certainly, he has no fear of talking, but that question is one he’s loath to answer. And, tellingly, when he asks it to his best friend Curtis (an excellent Brad Heberee), Curtis simply responds by repeating the question. All I will say about the play’s “twist” is that we never learn the answer.
Some viewers will find the work more infuriating than enlightening, or perhaps even more tedious than involving. Still, few can argue that thanks to Pierce’s singular gifts as an actor, Nate comes off as someone familiar to many of us, very different from some of his portrayer’s best-known characters, like Niles Crane (of “Frasier”) or Vanya (of “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” and someone about whom we manage to care about. That’s even more impressive than shocking an audience, isn’t it?
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/a-life
Cast
Marinda Anderson, Brad Heberlee, Nedra McClyde, Lynne McCollough, David Hyde Pierce
Open/Close Dates
Opening 9/30/2016
Closing 12/4/2016
Box Office
212-279-4200
Theatre Info
Playwrights Horizons
416 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
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