Roy Demeure (Victor Verhaeghe), the energetic, slapstick-loving protagonist of Holly Webber’s Pratfalls, is like a live-action Looney Tunes character; he’s got the easy charm of Bugs Bunny and the bad luck of Wile E. Coyote. Roy beats himself up about everything—literally: He’s a stage comedian whose signature act involves hitting himself repeatedly in the face. “Maybe you’re just trying to kill yourself in tiny increments,” suggests his love interest, Elena (Kate Middleton). A put-together lawyer with a tragic past, she’s a self-flagellator too—just in the figurative sense.
Set on a Brooklyn rooftop during the summer of ’03 (the year of the giant blackout), Pratfalls is a sweet, effortless romantic comedy with darkness lurking at its edges. Elena and Roy’s one-night stand turns into something else when Roy tumbles down the stairs, breaking both arms in the process, and Elena takes it upon herself to look after him while he recovers. Assisting with nursing duties is Roy’s neighbor Frances (Amelia White), a breed of kindly yet ruthless old lady unique to New York City.
Webber smartly confines the action of the play to the roof, a setting that works particularly well in the intimate confines of the Abingdon’s black-box space. Much like the characters in Pratfalls, director Jenn Thompson makes creative use of what she has to work with: a tiny stage, a snappy—if overlong—script and a solid clutch of performers. Verhaeghe is great as Roy, lovable and eager with a hot spring of anger bubbling just beneath his charisma.
The piece could stand to lose about 30 minutes, and Webber would do well to drop some of the more gimmicky plot machinations. (A villainous hipster character could be excised entirely.) But the play’s affable dialogue and genuine emotional core—and Ground Up Productions’ taut staging—keep it from falling on its face.—Jenna Scherer