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Screwball

nytheatre.com review by Hieu Tran
August 15, 2005

A lot of people say it is harder to do comedy than drama. Some would go further to say that it is especially hard to do “smart” comedy and make it work. After having had a chance to see the comedy ScrewBall, I would like to contend the opposite: that it is infinitely harder to do “dumb” comedy and make it work. That is, to actually make such fare consistently funny. By “smart” and “dumb” I could just as well mean high-brow and low-brow forms of comedy. ScrewBall, written by Douglas McFerran and directed by Aaron Mullen, falls decidedly into the latter category.Which is fine, if only they had managed to wring a fresh and hilarious perspective out of the tired cliches of a nebbish mama’s boy, a macho alpha-male, and the dubious vixen both men are intent on seducing. The story begins when Clarence, the mama’s boy, played by Ben McGroarty with a manic energy that never lets up through the course of the play, asks his studly roommate Chuck (Sean-Micheal Longstreth) for advice on how to score with a hot Ivy League chick from New England. Chuck sits Clarence down and doles out advice that is supposed to pass as his worldly take on the art of seduction, but amounts to little more than getting her drunk with champagne and taming her as “a horse whisperer would to his horse.” What? On one level I suppose McFerran and Mullen are trying to point out the absurdity of such simplistic male psychology, but by the way the “male-speak” is written, and the way the actors are directed to perform (in a hyper-stylized, emotive manner that is more annoying than ingratiating), they have done very little to elevate their play above the bland male machismo they are attempting to satirize.The second scene shows more promise, as Clarence meets his date Madeline, played by Wynn Tu Hall with a mysterious air about her that sucks a little more intrigue into proceedings. Her frank, self-confident comportment contrasts nicely with Clarence’s manic (and this time drunken) declarations and ramblings—as he does most of the drinking and she wisely abstains. Ben Duhl, as their Russian waiter Boris, also offers a light touch to the scene, even if his character—or rather characterization—is shaped mainly by a stereotype.The next night, with little explanation, Chuck goes on a date with Madeline. By the necessity of plot he is much more successful in his seduction of Madeline than Clarence—though we see or hear scant evidence of his smooth-talking ways on the actual date. Madeline goes home with Chuck, and the next day, in the roommates’ apartment, all hell—or rather plot-points—breaks loose. The characters proceed to do things that are completely arbitrary and make little sense (especially Madeline, whose air of intrigue is replaced by inexplicable actions intended only to further the story), and a play that offered the promise of a better second half succumbs to, well, its own low-brow intentions.