April 15, 2019
A successful businessman
has buried what was once his most prominent accomplishment: the authorship of a
hit Broadway play that has been a licensing bonanza to rival Arsenic and Old Lace. But it comes back
to haunt him when brother and sister twins from Nantucket—offspring of a
female director from the area, a woman that he dissed and dismissed 30 years ago—show
up at his office to implore his help toward filling a huge gap in their
memory; they can’t recall what happened to them during those days, 30 years ago,
when the playwright was in their home town. The playwright, who is our
narrator, recalls for us the circumstances—just as convoluted as the premise you’ve just
read—that lured him to Nantucket back then; which were that child porn was found in a house
that he bought there as an investment, had never before actually visited (the porn being an artifact of
the previous owner's residence).
That
preçis would seem to indicate that the porn and the
twins' suppressed memories are somehow related—but no, the unfortunate photos are but a
plot trigger, cursorily introduced and almost as summarily dispatched.
Which makes them in a way even more unfortunate, because it means that not only
is the universe of the play operating by random principles, but it renders
moral relativism no more than a sitcom commodity.
Nantucket Sleigh Ride, the
latest by John Guare, is thus coherent on the
surface—you can follow its crazy shit
happens narrative thread—but when scrutinized, has very little in the way
of internal logic. Its hero-playwright fulfills a trope very familiar from TV
fare: the anchored but bemused-bewildered hub character surrounded by
eccentrics; and he’s portrayed by television mainstay John Larroquette, who has personified such
authority centers before, bringing with him his flair for light comedy,
gravitas and his own audience
familiarity, which allows most of us enough comfort zone to follow him
through the madness—and that, I think, is why the play doesn’t
fly off the rails completely. But even a sterling supporting cast and knowing
direction by Jerry Zaks
aren't able to do much more than fake their way through the rest on style. The
entire experience is something of a non sequitur.
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