City Of: Theater review by David Cote
A whimsy-crammed meditation on art, loss and the mystery of Paris, Anton Dudley’s City Of makes you yearn to stroll around France’s capital. Or London would be nice. Hey, I’d be willing to visit Seattle or Atlanta—even Tampa!—anyplace but the theater where this tedious laundry list of secondhand Gallic clichés currently resides.
Four strangers meet on a flight to the famed home of baguettes and stripey shirts, each searching for something. Cammie (Colby Minifie), a neurotic opera singer, wants to find her voice; Eleanor (Suzanne Bertish) burns to recover her Parisian childhood; wealthy Dash (Devin Norik) is buying a painting for his deceased art-collector mother; then there’s shy, sweet Claude (Jon Norman Schneider), whose objective, as far as I can tell, is fresh pastries.
Displaying a wit and intelligence mostly absent from the script, Steven Rattazzi enlivens the parade of leaden metaphors and stale epigrams as a lovelorn gargoyle atop Notre Dame. Otherwise, the actors flail through their trite, faux-poetic material, not helped by Stephen Brackett’s limp direction. I suggest a vacation for everyone once the run is over. I hear Poughkeepsie’s nice.—David Cote
Peter Jay Sharp Theater (see Off Broadway). By Anton Dudley. Dir. Stephen Brackett. With ensemble cast. 1hr 30mins. No intermission.
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