Women or Nothing **

(Please click on the title to see the complete review.)
Whether or not you will enjoy Ethan Coen's new comedy for the Atlantic Theater Company depends largely on how much disbelief you are willing to suspend for some snappy dialogue and a few laughs. For me, accepting the premise of a pair of affluent sophisticated lesbians hatching a lame plot to trick a man into supplying the sperm for the child they want was too much of a stretch. Their plan makes little sense and is divorced from anything remotely resembling reality. On the plus side, the four actors (Halley Feiffer, Susan Pourfar, Robert Beitzel and Deborah Rush) play well together and two of the four scenes work quite well. Unfortunately, the final scene is a letdown. David Cromer's direction gets the most out of the script. Michele Spadaro's lavish set design of a Manhattan apartment incorporates a strange mixture of styles. Sarah Laux's costumes are apt. The play shows progress over Coen's recent one-act efforts, but still lacks the off-kilter inventiveness of a Coen screenplay. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes including intermission. NOTE: Avoid Row B at Atlantic's Linda Gross Theater -- there is no rake between Rows A and B and the seats are not staggered.

Happy Hour **

(Always click on the title to see the complete review!)
Ethan Coen's trio of one-act plays is the third evening of short works he has done for the Atlantic Theater. I wasn't much impressed with the other two -- and even less so with his lame contribution to "Relatively Speaking" -- so I went with low expectations. To say that this is the best of his three programs for Atlantic is not saying a lot, but it's not nothing. It begins well with "End Days," in which a depressive barfly (the excellent Gordon MacDonald)  rants about the evils of the digital age. His rants alternate with short scenes of his home life. As is so often the case with Coen, he doesn't know when to stop: the play would work better if it ended after the first scene. In "City Lights," Ted, a dyspeptic musician (Joey Slotnick) tries to track down a cabbie (Rock Kohli), in whose taxi he may have left a demo tape. Ted meets an idealistic schoolteacher (Aya Cash), who takes a liking to him, and her friend (Cassie Beck), who does not. Although he retrieves his demo tape, things do not end well. This being the play in which Coen is most closely channeling Mamet, using the C word at least once is obligatory. In the final play, "Wayfarer's Inn," two road warriors forced to stay at a third-rate hotel are planning their evening. The cynical one (Clark Gregg), unhampered by guilt over adultery, is lining up a double date for himself and his depressed traveling companion (Lenny Venito), who decides not to go. A scene at an "authentic" Japanese restaurant introduces us to the two dates, one bodacious and carefree (Ana Reeder), the other (Amanda Quaid), not so much, and also the stern waitress (Susan Hyon). There's a long story about a man and a fish which each of them interprets differently. Back at the hotel, things have taken a bad turn. I was left with a feeling of frustration: Coen knows how to write a good scene, but he still hasn't figured out how to combine scenes into a cohesive whole. I wish his screenwriting skills were more in evidence. The set by Riccardo Hernandez is a bit generic. Sarah Edwards' costumes are fine. Neil Pepe directed. Running time: 2 hours including intermission.

Relatively Speaking **

Three one-act plays by Ethan Coen, Elaine May and Woody Allen, now in previews at the Brooks Atkinson, are loosely linked by the theme of dysfunctional families.

The evening begins with Coen's "The Talking Cure," a series of sessions between psychiatrist (Jason Kravits) and patient (Danny Hoch). When the audience thought the play was over and started to applaud, the set suddenly opened to reveal the patient's parents (Fred Melamed and Katherine Borowitz) bickering at the dining room table when he was still in the womb. For me this scene detracted from, rather than added to, the play. I had previously seen two evenings of Coen's short plays and was underwhelmed both times. This one didn't change my opinion. In the presence of the great masters Elaine May and Woody Allen, Coen's work seemed not ready for prime time. I admire Coen's persistence, but the magic he works on screen doesn't seem to carry over to the stage.

Next up is Elaine May's "George Is Dead." Marlo Thomas shines as Doreen, a rich, selfish woman who has been so pampered that she is unable to act on her own. When her husband dies in a skiing accident, she turns up on the doorstep of Carla, her ex-nanny's grown daughter (the excellent Lisa Emery), on a night that she has fought with her husband Michael (Grant Shaud). Michael is a disillusioned liberal who is furious when he finds that Doreen, the woman to whom Carla's mother (Patricia O'Connell) had given precedence over her own daughter, is ensconced in their apartment. What follows goes on a bit too long, but the pleasure of hearing May's sparkling lines outweighed the play's shortcomings, at least for me.

Last but certainly not least is Woody Allen's hilarious farce "Honeymoon Motel," which by itself is worth the price of admission. This is the Woody Allen of old with nonstop funny dialogue and no pretense of seriousness. Allen presents the wedding night from Hell in the tacky honeymoon suite of a Long Island motel. We have a bride and groom, Nina Roth and Paul Jessup (the marvelous Ari Graynor and Bill Army), the bride's parents Sam and Fay Roth (Mark Linn-Baker and Allen veteran Julie Kavner), the groom's mother and stepfather Judy and Jerry Spector (Caroline Aaron and Steve Guttenberg, both terrific), Jerry's friend Eddie (Grant Shaud again), Jerry's shrink (Jason Kravits again), a rabbi (Richard Libertini) and a pizza delivery man (Danny Hoch again.) Mayhem ensues.

There are over three weeks until opening night, ample time for the playwrights and director John Turturro to work out some of the rough spots. I personally would have preferred seeing a longer version of the Allen play all by itself.

There was a service dog sitting under the seat next to the friend I attended with. Judging from the vigorous way he wagged his tail when the play ended, we were convinced that he enjoyed it too.

Running time:  2 hours, 20 minutes including a pause and an intermission