Every once in a while, an off-off-Broadway limited-run showcase production jumps up and reminds you that there is some really good Theatre happening up and down the side streets of Manhattan.
...impeccably acted by Gerry Goodstein and Ellen Barry...
...It’s not easy for an accomplished actor to play a novice who screws up lines and ‘indicates’ everything, as in pointing up to locate the sky, but professional Barry ramps her considerable talent down to amateur Jean’s level, and the result is not only very funny, it’s also quite poignant. Joe is no slouch either. His awkwardness helping Jean learn her lines morphs into immersion in the process, with Goodstein’s Joe growing into it with comic self-assurance. (“I could play this role!”) There’s also an effective bit by Joseph Franchini as the off-stage director of Jean’s play...
...Goodstein makes Joe’s embarrassment at having been ‘taken’ by a supposed friend heart-wrenching and Barry finds in Jean a heart-warming font of devotion despite her disappointment.
Kathy Gail MacGowan’s direction keeps the play in motion even when it isn’t.