LEFT ON TENTH
by Delia Ephron
Based on Her Memoir
Directed by Susan Stroman
Starring Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher
Official Website
Reviewed by David Spencer
I’ve been at the reviewing game for a long time, a half century, and over the years I’ve clocked a mellowing. Partially it comes from sufficient experience working the other side of the arch, partially it’s just the humbling of age, which modern psychology cites as normal—there are those we all know who haven’t gotten the memo yet, but we’ll put that aside for the moment—but it has led to a constant, conscious effort to guard or revise against insensitivity. Where I used to blow the whistle on mendacity, hucksterism or flagrant incompetence with the energy of righteousness—you know, how dare charlatans tread upon our hallowed ground—these days I tend not to even bother with such productions. What’s the point of the catharsis? I’m never the only one to notice, and most of those little crimes against art won’t last long anyway. As to big crimes against art: they can take the heat, but even then, simple reportage is damning enough.
But oh-oh-oh, whatever can you say when profoundly talented people of serious pedigree are telling a sweet/sad personal story, based on the playwright’s own beloved bestselling memoir…and it simply isn’t very good? This is the dilemma of reviewing screenwriter-novelist Delia Ephron’s Left on Tenth. (*sigh*) We might as well dive in. Well, dive…the pool is not that deep. Wade.
As narrated mostly be Delia herself (Julianna Margulies), with her NYC apartment on 10th Street in the Village as backdrop to a general playing space (scenery: Beowolf Boritt), we learn that she’s recently widowed and a bereaved sibling, having lost her husband and her older, sometime-cowriter sister, Nora, to cancer. (The title Left on Tenth thus reveals itself to be a melancholy pun.) Misadventures trying to cancel her husband’s landline without losing her own internet lead to her writing a humorous New York Times article about it, which lead to Peter (Peter Gallagher), a forgotten high school flame, reaching out via email from the opposite coast to re-establish contact. should she feel so inclined. And of course, he’s such a charming correspondent that she does. Romance ensues. He’s a great guy. It leads to marriage. And when Delia herself faces the prospect and onset of cancer—and the treatments—he’s an even greater guy. She lives. The end. There are a few moments when Peter takes up the narrative; but since the “permission” for this has never been established, they seem, though harmlessly, incongruous. Doctors, neighbors, friends and etc. are assayed by two multiply cast supporting players (Peter Francis James and Kate MacCluggage.)
For all the internal drama, there’s not much external drama or tension; and while all actors are sufficiently talented, under Susan Stroman’s direction the playing style is too bright for the show’s intimacy. Imagine an episode of, say, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers or Frasier directed as if it were an SNL sketch. I don’t mean to say that Ms. Stroman has the actors adopting caricature mode, all hands are playing it sincerely; but the wattage is turned up just high enough that it fights a sense of authenticity. It comes at you so emphatically that you don’t find much room to be drawn in. In her favor, Ms. Stroman keeps everything moving briskly and enhances transitions with colorful projections (Jeanette On-Suk Yew) taking over the skyline. Paradoxically, though, this conspicuous bit of minor tech-spectacle adds to the stylistic disjunct. Some of it reminded me—in spirit—of the main title animations for Love, American Style. Kind of bubbly and happy.
This is one of those combinations of production and material that can work quite decently for audience members who are willing to simply say YES to the storytelling and not be much bothered by an imperfect delivery system. It’s an entirely valid response and those patrons were there the night I attended; just enough of them to laugh respectably in the right places. But they were notably a separate faction. For the rest of us: It seemed like polite, well-mannered, no-hard-feelings tolerance.
And in the interest of sensitivity, best to leave this review at that.