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Usher Nonsense Vol. 2, No. 16
A SECOND HAND MEMORY - written and directed by Woody Allen
with Kate Blumberg, Dominic Chianese, Beth Fowler, Nicky Katt, Erica Leerhsen,
Elizabeth Marvel (Hedda Gabler), Michael McKean
Set designer: Santo Loquasto (Danny and the Deep Blue Sea); Costume designer: Laura
Bauer; Lighting designer: James F. Ingalls (Sixteen Wounded)
Atlantic Theatre Company through Janury 23, 2005
OK. My face hurts again. Woody Allen is trying to become Neil Simon on downers. It's not
working.
1950's Brooklyn. Elizabeth Marvel walks out, pantomimes touching the non-existent walls, and
then explains to us that she is a narrator, an apparition, who, as a person sometimes there and
sometimes not there, can walk through walls. This was a very long 30 seconds.
The rest of the two hours went just about as fast. Three men related by blood and marriage all
struggle with lives running out of control. And each of them ends up cheating on his wife. One
breaks it off, one marries his mistress and one just up and runs away. The women caught in the
middle alternately complain, placate, suffer and scream. With one exception – our narrator – who
is wandering the world smoking cigarettes, and sleeping around, (with at least on abortion as a
result) and drifting in and out of her family's dreams.
Superimposed over this is some darn bad acting and/or directing. Dominic Chianese either didn't
know his lines or was directed to act so befuddled that it appeared that way. Nicky Katt slouches
from one corner to another sighing and fretting ad infinitum. All three of the women in the story
are so vacuous you can see why a guy would leave home without it. Michael McKean, as a
Hollywood agent, at least has a spine and a certainty onstage, but it's not strong enough to pull the
rest of the play along. As the narrator, Elizabeth Marvel tries, bless her, but she is a dream
character in a play that is asleep.
Even the good music – The Mills Brothers and Tony Bennett among others – the wonderful set
and the lighting details that visually sculpt the scenes – aren't enough to lift this piece into
consciousness.
©2004 Tulis McCall