Theatre in Review: Close Up Space (Manhattan Theatre Club/New York City Center)

	David Hyde Pierce.Photo: Joan Marcus.

It must be the dream of every young playwright to have a production at a venue such as Manhattan Theatre Club. Suddenly, all those out-of-reach amenities are yours -- a name cast, a first-class director, a design team with the skill and budget to realize one's vision. Even more, an MTC production is a seal of approval, turning an unknown name overnight into one to be reckoned with. Such a dream can quickly turn into a nightmare, however, when -- thanks to misplaced enthusiasm, bad judgment, or an unlucky turn of the wheel of fortune -- the play in question simply isn't ready to be seen.

Looking over her assorted credits -- productions at the Humana Festival and South Coast Repertory, along with various degrees and prizes -- it's reasonable to assume that Molly Smith Metzler is a promising new writer. If that's the case, however, MTC has done her no favors in putting on Close Up Space, an ungainly and seemingly unfinished work now being exposed, in all its nakedness, eight times a week at City Center.

Perhaps someone decided that Close Up Space would be a good vehicle for David Hyde Pierce, allowing him to do his standard fussbudget thing as Paul, a Manhattan book editor, whose slash-and-burn approach to prose is meant -- in the most banal fashion -- to signal his emotional frigidity. (One horrified author, brandishing a manuscript, says, "You crossed out pages 83 through 149.") It begins amusingly enough, with Paul apparently lecturing the audience on the rules of editing. Using an overhead projector, he carves up a series of letters from schools that have expelled his daughter, Harper, for her appalling behavior. (One letter, running a couple hundred words or so, is cut to "Your daughter is expelled.")

But then the lights come up, and the worries begin. For one thing, who uses an overhead projector anymore? For another, we see that Paul is talking not to us, but to Bailey, an intern from Vassar who is understandably nervous about how the job is going on her first day. Next, we see Paul arriving at work early in the morning and finding Steve, his office manager, living in a pup tent that he pitches each night after office hours. Steve has a perfectly good apartment, but, as he tells it, "My dog broke my heart," becoming overly fond of his roommate, and he can't bear to go home. Then there's Vanessa Finn Adams, the best-selling author whose bloated, bodice-ripping manuscripts keep Paul's firm afloat. When he criticizes her latest sex-laced opus, she snaps, "If you try to oppose my vagina," she'll take it to his competitor.

So far, Close Up Space plays like the kind of busted sitcom pilot that the networks air in the summer, when they know nobody is watching anyway. But the main event is the appearance of Harper, described, with good reason, by Paul as "my hellacious daughter." Having been bounced from her latest boarding school, she appears in a snow hat with flaps, speaking only in Russian, and carrying a plastic cooler containing snowballs that she hurls at her father. When that isn't enough, she spits on him. And, for a topper, she, or perhaps a team of confederates -- this point is never made clear -- breaks into Paul's office and steals every last object, including the only copy of Vanessa's latest manuscript. (We are told that Vanessa can only work on a manual typewriter, and apparently nobody in the play has ever used a copying machine.)

This is the point where Close Up Space goes from being merely unfunny to being unfunny and mawkish. We learn that Paul's wife -- also the publishing house's leading author -- suffered from mental problems and killed herself. Paul, unable to grieve, has dispatched Harper from his life. Having cut a swath of destruction through various educational institutions, she experienced a major trauma when her mother's final novel turned up as required reading in a literature class. Recalling this incident to Paul, she expresses her anguish by screaming at the top of her lungs for nearly 60 seconds. I guess we're meant to find her kookily charming and touching in her pain -- but, really, if I were Paul, I'd lock her up and throw away the key.

The play climaxes with a lot of sentimental hooey about learning to live with pain and forgive yourself, the two nostrums peddled by playwrights who have run out of anything interesting to say. By this time, Harper is in Russia -- Vanessa gave her the money to go there, for no reason I can offer-- and Paul is sitting in Steven's tent, dictating a letter to Harper, which Steven writes on his arm and leg.

The director, Leigh Silverman, normally has a nice way with comedy -- see Chinglish, now on Broadway, for a good example -- but there's nothing she can do with this grating and poorly structured script. The actors are hopelessly lumbered with characters who are nothing but masses of tired situation comedy tropes. Pierce does manage to suggest Paul's anguish here and there, and he earns one or two laughs, but it's a case of a highly skilled actor practicing sleight of hand with the skimpiest material. As Harper, Colby Minifie basically delivers a 90-minute tantrum; it's arguably the most irritating performance I've seen all year. As Steve, Michael Chernus gives us one of his patented slacker performances, but then, what can you do with lines like, "Your insult daggers do not hurt me; I have an Alpha shield!" Rosie Perez does her best as Vanessa, but that vagina line mentioned above is all too typical of what she is given to say.

Anyway, MTC has given Close Up Space its usual slick production, complete with Todd Rosenthal's two-room brick office interior, Emily Rebholz's character-appropriate costumes, Matt Frey's highly professional lighting, and Jill BC DuBoff's sound design, which mixes and matches various contemporary music styles during the scene changes.

But what, exactly, is the point of putting so much effort into mounting a production of a script like this? Manhattan Theatre Club is dedicated to nurturing new writers. A crucial part of that task is knowing when- -and when they're not -- ready for major exposure.--David Barbour