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Past Reviews Off Broadway Reviews |
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Jim (Neil Holland) and Bill (Chaz Reuben) have been friends for two decades. They meet up at one of their old hangouts, the back room of a bar, to shoot the breeze, play some pool, and raise a glass in honor of Bill's impending 39th birthday. They are not there one minute before Jim starts pumping Bill at length and in some detail about the health of his prostate and the quality of his seminal ejaculationsnot the way most of us would greet our friends, but there you have it. The conversation quickly turns to relationships between men and women. Jim, a little younger than Bill and unmarried, is beginning to crave a serious relationship and children; Bill, married to Jess (Danelle Eliav), also wants children, but it seems that Jess is in no hurry. There are also confessions and the airing of grievances of the sort that generally do not emerge after only a beer or two. These rituals of bromantic bonding continue until the pair is joined by a stranger, Joe (Michael Puzzo, bizarrely comical in his display of over-the-top obnoxiousness). Joe insinuates himself into the conversation, becoming more and more of a "total and successful dick" (as he is referred to on several occasions), and he takes it upon himself to barrage the men, especially Bill, with deeply personal questions. Gradually, Bill becomes the Othello to Joe's Iago as the latter plants the suggestion that Jim might be carrying on an affair with Jess. The evening turns on these kinds of conversations (Joe justifies his behavior as mere "bar talk"), until eventually an explanation (actually more than one explanation) ensues to shed light on the proceedings. Before the play is over, Jess joins the fellows and, in doing so, shows herself to be the only adult in the room. It is likely that the playwright and director Shira-Lee Shalit intended for Fault Lines to be viewed as a dark comedy. Unfortunately, the stakes are too low for the threat to the men's friendship or even to Bill and Jess's marriage to be considered dark, and the material is insufficiently comic to fill the bill.
Fault Lines
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