The Jammer, set in the world of roller derby
racing, is better than
the revival of Moose Murders in the sense that it’s performed by a professional cast, most
of whom seem to understand what comedy delivery is about. But they’re hamstrung
by two things: (1) direction by
Jason Gay that
misconstrues manic behavior for humorous behavior, forcing a cast that I think
knows better to forcibly ratchet up their performances in negation of their
better instincts; and (2) a script by Rollin Jones that has a lot of incident but very little in the
way of overall story, at least in the sense that good comedy is built on. His
hero, hapless blue-collar Pittsburghian Jack Lovington (Patch Darragh, playing the role with sad-sack sincerity and a
Marvin Kaplan as Choo-Choo on Top Cat voice to match) runs away from his life and
commitments to join the derby world that calls to him, for which he has a
natural talent; and thereupon follows a kind of rites-of-passage arc that has
no overall objective or built in deadline to make anything particularly urgent.
The Atlantic Second Stage
theatre, a lovely little space on 16th Street, is in a subbasement; and its
architecture is such that once this intermissionless play starts, you’re pretty
much trapped for the whole of its 90 minutes (unless you really
want to draw undue attention to yourself); so if you plan to
attend—because you’re a subscriber or perhaps another’s view, or the
subject matter, makes
The Jammer seem
more appealing than I make it out to be—brace yourself to settle in. You
may find it a long settle.