subUrbia Reviews

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 9/28/06 at 7:32pm

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/09_28_06.html

Murray thinks it's bland, but with great performances from Kieran Culkin and Peter Scanavino.

"Only Culkin, with his shrugging likability and perfectly pitched retro-grunge attitude (augmented, better than anyone else, by Mimi O'Donnell's costumes), and Scanavino, who mines compelling blood-level societal confusion from Tim's overly familiar predicament, capture the essences of their characters in currently relevant ways. Gold's Jeff seems too old and knowing for either his rampant moralizing or his relationship with the wayward Sooze to ring true. Hoffman's unanchored portrayal, which like Feiffer's is about commenting on the role rather than inhabiting it, doesn't help.

They can hardly be blamed, as Bogosian and Bonney have done no better. Bonney's realistic staging on Richard Hoover's elaborately realistic set allows no fantasy to creep into this world, but the show requires at least some to compensate theatrically for the contradictions now preventing the play from firing on all emotional cylinders."