There’s a reason sitcoms last just 23 minutes: That’s how long their thin premises tend to hold their audiences’ attention.
“For Better …” is the latest unsurprising new Eric Coble comedy to tell us things we already know all about ourselves: Technology has made it easier to keep in touch, but there’s no substitute for good old human contact. Especially if you’re, I dunno … married.
Hang with me a sec while I send out a MySpace bulletin.
If you didn’t already know this vagary of modern life, go see the world premiere staging by Curious Theatre, where Coble’s selfish, exasperated characters will yell all about it for two hours.
“For Better …” is part of the exciting National New Play Network, a consortium of quality theaters that commissions new works and gives them at least four stagings, allowing for improvements to be made in between. The question is whether a play like “For Better …” is worth all that effort. You’ll laugh. You’ll relate to it, but take nothing from it.
Our primary characters all have banal jobs that require travel. Karen (Lisa Rosenhagen) is getting married in two weeks … to some guy she’s seen only twice. Her sister Francine (Dee Covington), who met her own husband, Michael (John Arp), through an online dating service, orders him to ask flighty ex-girlfriend Lizzie (Rhonda Brown) to run a background check on the never-seen Max.
“For Better” is well-performed, and at times pretty funny, in a rimshot, sitcom kind of way. But it’s all over the map stylistically. Karen is right out of a Julia Roberts romantic comedy; Lizzie a light farce; cranky Michael a Mamet comedy; super-serious Francine a soapy melodrama.
As Francine hopes to reconcile with her mopey husband, she says, in all seriousness: “Can I have another bite of cookie?” Delivered another way, it might be the funniest line of the night. Come to think of it, it was.
It doesn’t work as a rom-com, because none of these people belong together. It doesn’t work as a farce because of its tonal inconsistencies. As a farce, and nothing but a farce, it might stand a chance. Instead it’s a tepid social commentary, it’s a “Carol Burnett” sketch, it’s … confused.
The problem starts with Coble’s choice to make his characters hedonists who make no real effort to be together, which makes it hard for us to root for anybody. Max sends Karen a ring through FedEx. Michael and Francine only aggravate each other.
Scene interludes are punctuated by the theme song to “Love, American Style,” but there is no love here. They’ve all made their choices. Career trumps relationships. And that’s an insult to busy, hardworking couples who actually do make the other person an occasional priority.
The big irony here is that technology allows these ambivalent couples to communicate just enough to justify their staying simultaneously together, yet apart. Without cellphones or text messaging, they’d have been dead in the water long ago.
Of greater issue is that this play is awkward to stage and already technologically dated. With few exceptions, actors stand on different parts of the set holding cellphones and yelling. Has no one heard of a Bluetooth? An iPhone?
There are three scenes of mass, simultaneous phone calls, the kind we’ve seen since “Bye, Bye Birdie.” Here, of course, someone says something he shouldn’t to the wrong person. The same scene plays out every week on “Brothers & Sisters.” It doesn’t qualify as a substantive turning point for a major new play.
These scenes are a cheat, anyway, because they don’t even happen in real time. People don’t get put on hold, they get theatrically paused, so they aren’t even simultaneous. There’s no true rhythm to them.
The best writing in the play is a monologue by Jim Zeiger (as the father), though it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. There are three projection screens over the set that are put to no use – not even during extended instant-messaging dialogues.
The play falls apart in the final scene, when everyone meets up for the first time. The great comic potential here is that once you put all of these characters in the same room, they won’t have anything to say to one another. No such luck. Instead, the joke depends on the father not recognizing Stuart – Karen’s lifelong friend who attended Francine’s wedding.
In September, Curious remounted its first production, “How I Learned to Drive,” which reminded everyone why this exceptional company formed in the first place. But at the moment it seems to be losing its satellite signal.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“For Better …”
World-premiere comedy Presented by Curious Theatre at the Acoma Center, 1080 Acoma St. Written by Eric Coble. Through Dec. 15. 2 hours, 5 minutes. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. most Sundays. $26-$32 (2-for-1 Thursdays). 303-623-0524 or
3 more
“Depth of Illusion.” Nick Felix’s magic show promises disappearing beauties, escapes and a “death-defying” trick he says has killed three people who have tried it. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays at the New Denver Civic Theatre, 721 Santa Fe Drive. $29.50. 303-309-3773, King Soopers, or . $19.50 student rush
“From Rags to Riches.” Heritage Square Music Hall’s comic adaptation of a touching tale of a family reunited, followed by its stellar holiday comedy-music revue. Showtimes nearly daily through Dec. 31, twice on Saturdays and Sundays, at 18301 W. Colfax Ave., Golden. $29-$38.50. 303-279-7800 or .
“Plaid Tidings.” The dead crooner quartet from “Forever Plaid” is again called back from heaven to stage a holiday extravaganza. Opens Tuesday. 7 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 7 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays, plus 12:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Dec. 23 in the Arvada Center’s Black Box Theater, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd. $38-$48. 720-898-7200 or .
Weekly podcasts
Audio: Running Lines with L. Corwin Christie. John Moore talks with the star of “More Stately Mansions,” opening Nov. 16 at the Germinal Stage Denver. .
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Video: Jasper Ryckman. The fifth in our series of interviews with the cast of Listen Productions’ “Macbeth” features the teen fiddler who plays Fleance (720-290-1104). Watch at . Posting Saturday: GerRee Hinshaw, who plays Banquo.
