SWIMMING WITH THE LITTLE FISH
 Theatre Review
by Harvey Perr
Jack Goes Boating
now playing at the Public Theatre’s Martinson Hall
currently extended through April 29, 2007
Jack is an ordinary guy, the kind of ordinary guy most playwrights would steer clear of, because it is difficult to
imagine what one could say about such an ordinary guy that hasn’t been said before. He is a charmless and diffident idler who loves
reggae and actually listens to the lyrics, and who hides, under his cap, as many Rasta dreadlocks as his straight, dank blonde hair can
accommodate. This may very well be the only thing that separates Jack from all the other ordinary guys who stroll the streets and ride
the subways of New York City in aimless pursuit of what life might conceivably mean. Two other things you should know about Jack is that
he can’t swim and he can’t cook. But, if he is to win the heart of Connie, the young woman his married friends, Clyde and Lucy, have set
him up with, he must learn how to do both. You see, he has promised to take Connie boating come summer next, and, really, how can one
risk going boating if one hasn’t mastered the art of swimming? And when, teetering skittishly on the edge of Connie’s hospital bed, he
promises Connie a big dinner when she’s out of the hospital, she is so thrilled by the idea of having a man make dinner for her that he
can’t quite own up to her that that wasn’t exactly what he had on his mind. So he takes swimming lessons from Clyde and cooking lessons
from The Cannoli, an assistant to the pastry chef in a downtown hotel. Jack may not show too much of what we call initiative, but he is
game.
The other thing that separates Jack from the other ordinary guys he represents is that he is played, in Bob Glaudini’s
“Jack Goes Boating,” by Philip Seymour Hoffman, an anything but ordinary actor. In his first swimming lesson, going from the shallow end
into deeper waters, Hoffman turns this episode into a deliciously funny comic tour de force. And, better yet, it is sheer bliss when, in
the second act, he fully absorbs the cooking techniques he has been studying, and revels in the pleasure he realizes he is getting from
his studies. In that moment, Hoffman joins the short list of actors who could read the telephone book and thoroughly engage us. Hoffman,
in brief, is wonderful, and any opportunity to see him in action is an opportunity worth savoring. But, as good as Hoffman is, Glaudini
has written a chamber piece for four actors, not a star vehicle, and his play is equally well served by the other three actors – Beth
Cole as the lonely and fearful Connie, and John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega as the couple who help Jack but could use a bit of help
themselves – who comprise the cast.
The play, which charts the course of two relationships, one that is slowly falling apart and one that is slowly coming
together, is told in brief staccato scenes that do not so much flow into each other as jar us into each accelerating mood, and its
language has all those stutters and stammers we associate with the way real people speak but which, in its verbal rhythms, turns out to
be highly stylized. Glaudini’s unique voice, quirky and sly, first wormed its way into this reviewer’s heart a few years back in “The
Identical Same Temptation,” which, under Glaudini’s direction, walked a tightrope between hilarity and heartbreak without missing a
single beat. The Labyrinth Theater Company, a fertile haven for interesting writers, produced his next play – “Dutch: Heart of Man” – in
which many actors kept moving busily around without getting anywhere, and what was so natural in “Temptation” seemed forced and strained
in these different surroundings.
“Jack Goes Boating,” with its little epiphanies and small grace notes, may not be a marked improvement over the
promise of “Temptation,” but it is both looser and more tightly knit than “Dutch,” and reflects a happier collaboration between the
playwright and the Labyrinth Theater Company. All the charm of Glaudini’s wayward style is maintained in Peter Dubois’ direction. David
Korins has designed another of his eloquent sets and has particular fun with an indoor swimming pool. Mimi O’Donnell’s costumes breathe
as much recognizable life into the play’s characters as the actors do. But the play’s greatest virtue is that, while Glaudini knows all
about what destroys relationships, he also, bless his frayed lace heart, still believes in love. And he has written the loveliest sex
scene, played with the utmost delicacy by Hoffman and Cole, and staged with surgical skill by Dubois, which will forever stay vivid in
the audience’s collective memory. And Jack, ordinary guy though he may be, becomes, in the play’s final lyrical minutes, very much a
singular creation.
|
home theatre film DVD movie posters links privacy statement |
| □ | home |
| □ | theatre |
| □ | film |
| □ | DVD |
| □ | movie posters |
| □ | links |
| □ | privacy statement |
| □ | site map |