All in the Timing
Reviewed by Julia Lloyd-George
The Zephyr Theatre
Through November 20
David Ives’ 1993 collection of six comic one-act plays, All In The Timing, is a mixed bag of sketches that are mostly, believe it or not, concerned with the coincidences, missed connections, and alternate realities implied by a single moment. Timing, comic or otherwise, is pretty much all that matters here. As first impressions are truly everything, it’s a smart move on the part of the director, Michael Yavnieli, to begin with Sure Thing, where this theme works most successfully.
This scene reminded me a lot of the film About Time, in which Domhnall Gleason’s lovelorn time traveler is able to start from scratch every time something goes wrong in his love life. Ives’ play involves two people in a coffee shop who continually replay their first encounter until they finally get it right and inevitably begin a romance. The man (Taylor Behrens) rings a bell every time he messes up, or the woman (a charming Meadow Clare) says something that throws off the chemistry — he seems particularly annoyed when she asks if he’s a Scorpio.. In Ives’ interpretation, it’s a light-hearted way of saying how delicate every new connection, romantic or otherwise, can be.
The next one, Mere Mortals, was pulled from another collection of Ives’ plays. It’s easy to see why, as it’s another of the stronger contenders here. Three construction workers on top of a skyscraper take their lunch break and slowly reveal to each other their conviction that, underneath their “average Joe” exteriors, they’re actually long-lost royalty or celebrities. The first (a stand-out Patrick Warburton) stoically and rather shyly lets slip that he’s actually Charles Lindbergh’s kidnapped baby. Understandably skeptical, his colleagues (Bill Butts and Talon Warburton) nevertheless admit that they’re the sole surviving Romanovs or were, most improbably, Marie Antoinette in a past life. It’s certainly a silly premise, but the actors play it perfectly straight and make you sympathize with their very human desire to feel special.
The Philadelphia is the last sketch worth seeing here, mostly because Patrick Warburton carries it so well. When a young man (Talon Warburton) rushes into the restaurant where Patrick’s character is sitting and explains that he somehow can’t get anything he asks for, Patrick explains that he’s in a black hole of sorts called a “Philadelphia.” If he wants to get anything done, he has to ask for the very opposite. It’s a classic comedy of errors and most of the jokes land smoothly. However, the waitress (Melodie Shih), has an affected, caricatured Asian accent that seems to be there only to make her, rather uncomfortably, the butt of the joke. It’s this kind of retrograde detail that makes it clear that these sketches are several decades old and need a contemporary edit. After all, the very same actress clearly has a standard American accent in a previous one-act, Words Words Words, about three monkeys forced to type until they produce Hamlet. She’s also able to demonstrate a wonderfully dry wit there.
The other sketches, The Universal Language and Variations On the Death of Trotsky, were quite tiresome to sit through, as the first gleans its laughs from being conducted, almost entirely, in a nonsense language, while the other takes the conceit of Sure Thing and rather stuffily applies it to the death of Leon Trotsky. Watching the different ways that a gardener can plant an axe in a revolutionary’s head is just not the most compelling activity I can think of.
Overall, there are definitely some worthy elements to this show as a whole, but you may have to sit through a few missed opportunities in order to enjoy them.
The Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave; Fri.-Sat., 8pm; Sun., 3pm; thru Nov. 20. www.onstage411.com/aitt; Running time: 86 minutes with no intermission.
