September 11, 2001, Tuesday
THE ARTS/CULTURAL DESK
By D. J. R. BRUCKNER
Time is doing us in more quickly than it used to. In 1988, when
Howard Korder's play ''Boys' Life'' first appeared, it came across as a mordant
satire on the flabby selfishness of modern young men's search for emotional
safety and sexual satisfaction with women -- in that order. Only 13 years later,
whole patches of its once-resonant dialogue can leave you wondering what the
play is all about.
The change is in us, and recognizing that is not comforting. The plot of
''Boys' Life'' has always seemed like a thin episode of a sitcom, but anyone who
has spent even a little time in theaters or just sampling television in the last
few years will find the concerns of these characters -- about honesty, loyalty,
fidelity, trust, achievement and the like -- a bit quaint if often charming.
The director, Drew DeCorleto, and the cast of the Broken Watch Productions
revival of the play at PC2 appear to take all this as a challenge that they
thoroughly enjoy meeting, and their enthusiasm can be catching. Mr. DeCorleto
keeps the brief, disconnected episodes moving so fast on John Wiese's Lego-like
set that one forgets that the original Lincoln Center Theater production often
felt annoyingly like a string of discrete blackouts.
The women's roles are stronger than the men's. Jeslyn Kelly as Lisa --
a waitress who puzzles us by finding something seductive in Don (Jeremy
Koch), an idler who defines himself by doubts and hesitations -- reveals
the toughness of her character when Lisa uses a thoughtless infidelity
of Don's to make him see that, indeed, he can find safety only with her.
Karen (Alli Steinberg) is torn between uncontrollable desire and a conviction
that she is worthless. So when Phil (Andrew J. Hoff), to whom all sex
is unspeakable hope, encounters her in a friend's bedroom, his education
is a comedy of terror.
Danielle Savin as Maggie -- a jogger who deftly swerves around the advances
of Jack (Leo Lauer), a married man whose mouth is all Don Juan while his manhood
is molasses -- knows how to make insouciance a tempting virtue. And Teresa
Goding as a one-night stand (who almost destroys the only romance in the story),
makes sexual foreplay so funny that you conclude that it would be greedy for any
man to want anything more. In the original production, this scene fell flat; it
is instructive to see how much it can improve the whole play when it inspires as
much laughter as it does here.
The male characters are exactly the tiresomely overage ''boys'' that Mr.
Korder's sarcastic title suggests. But Mr. Hoff makes you apprehensive that at
any moment Phil's spring might snap and he will go berserk. Mr. Koch makes Don's
willingness to go along with every mindless joke proposed by his male buddies
seem so craven that you constantly question this character's motives, even when
he wins the best woman in the story. And ever so slowly, Mr. Lauer lets you see
that the source of Jack's wit, which keeps him at the center of all these
people's world, is a fear of life that he never shed when he never grew up.
Making these three weaklings as memorable as those strong women is an
achievement.
So the effect of the performance is very different from what it was in 1988.
And even if some people leave wondering what the play is really about, they will
have no question about what this cast is up to.
BOYS' LIFE
By
Howard Korder; directed by Drew DeCorleto; sets by John Wiese; production stage
manager, Barrett Hall; assistant set designer, Jito Lee; assistant stage
manager, Stephen Brumble; sound editor, Adam Fumia. Presented by Broken Watch
Productions Inc. At PC2, Ninth Avenue at 44th Street, Clinton.
WITH: Leo
Lauer, Andrew J. Hoff, Jeremy Koch, Jeslyn Kelly, Danielle Savin, Alli Steinberg
and Teresa Goding.
Published: 09 - 11 - 2001 , Late Edition - Final , Section E , Column 5 ,
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