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In Search of Stanley Hammer

nytheatre.com review by David Hilder
August 15, 2005

The quest for identity drives all the characters in In Search of Stanley Hammer. Baseball great Jackie Robinson tries acting when he finds a book entitled “Finding Your Character.” A woman named Bertha, who tells us vehemently (and repeatedly) that she did not kill her husband, wraps herself in a blanket and deposits herself on the doorstep of an unknown family. Sophie, the self-proclaimed prettiest girl in high school, drives herself first to become a wife and then an acclaimed actress. And the eponymous Stanley works his whole life to find what his ticket to success will be. In fact, everyone in the play is working hard to get away from the past, even if they don’t know exactly where they’re going.At nearly an hour and a half, In Search of Stanley Hammer is too long and too diffuse for its central themes to bear any weight, and playwright Kimberly Rosenstock seems more concerned with a sustained wackiness than any actual investment in her characters. That’s a shame, because while there are wonderful moments to recommend the play, a deeper investigation of these ideas might be a lot more satisfying.Antonia Grilikhes-Lasky has directed with a fine hand, working well to minimize transition time between scenes in the lovely but somewhat awkward theatre at the Center for Architecture. The scenic and prop design elements (by Jen Colombo), costumes (Asta Hostetter), and projections (Natalie Robin) all serve the play beautifully. Most of the cast, though, fails to fully inhabit the alternate world—a quasi-Brooklyn of the 1950s and early '60s—the play posits. Only Phillip Taratula, as a series of radio and television announcers, and Kristen Schaal, as the outrageously selfish Sophie, seem to be living their roles. Schaal is particularly inspired, giving a comic turn that allows Sophie’s vanity a wide range of colors. It’s an impressive performance.Ultimately, In Search of Stanley Hammer appears to want to be both lighthearted fluff and a rooted, character-driven story. At this point, though, it succeeds only at the first of these aims, and that somewhat fitfully.