Fish In the Dark is the new comedy written by Larry David, the creator and star of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and co-creator of "Seinfeld." Fish In the Dark is directed by Anna D. Shapiro and marks Tony-winner Jason Alexander's Broadway return and features Jayne Houdyshell, Jake Cannavale, Jonny Orsini, Rosie Perez, and Jerry Adler.
If you're wondering if you'll like Larry David's Broadway debut, 'Fish in the Dark,' you need to ask another question: Do you like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'? That's because David's new stage comedy is like his 30-minute HBO show, only stretched out over two hours so that what is usually a cringe-worthy appetizer on TV has grown into a tedious and self-indulgent main course onstage. What opened Thursday at the Cort Theatre will surely delight fans of David, the 'Seinfeld' and 'Curb' master of observational humor, who stars and wrote 'Fish in the Dark.' But it may leave others frustrated that a great cast, set and director were wasted...David stalks the stage like an overgrown, wiry insect -- a bespectacled Daddy Longlegs comes to mind -- as he stuffs his hands in his pockets or waves his arms around to sell his outrage. A self-satisfied smirk never seems far from his lips...Director Anna D. Shapiro keeps the action as brisk as a sitcom but this cold fish of a play would likely have ended up on the cutting room floor if it was made for TV...Talk about the one that got away: David had a chance to do something special here with a new medium and a game cast, but he chose to spin his wheels. He chose to go faux.
It's the pesky little things that make up Larry David's infinitely expandable comic universe. All those petty grievances and minor disputes, the slights and slips, the miscues and forced apologies -- so flustering in our own lives, so hilarious in his...This gift for stringing together minuscule moments of frustration and fury...is ideally suited to the small screen. On the stage, however, the smallness and the shtickiness are clumsily magnified, as 'Fish in the Dark'...uncomfortably reveals...This is an overextended sitcom that would like to become a farce but settles instead for some hoary Neil Simon middle ground. There are laughs, to be sure...But stretched out over the length of about three and a half episodes of 'Curb,' the show huffs and puffs its way to the finish line like a geriatric marathoner wheeling an oxygen tank behind him. It's not surprising that David's playwriting inexperience would show. What is astonishing is that the production would compound the problem by obediently following David's lead instead of channeling his comic instincts in a more theatrical direction.
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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