The Understudy

Here’s the setup – a big action movie star has taken a role on Broadway opposite an even bigger action movie star. A nobody shows up to rehearse the understudy role for a big action movie star. It turns out that the stage manager and the nobody were once engaged. The action star doesn’t really want to work with the nobody, but eventually sees that he brings a talent to the role that is sorely lacking. The bigger action star (cleverly referred to as “Bruce”) winds up stealing a role from the smaller action star adding more dramatic tension. Throw in some references to Franz Kafka, and you have a pleasant 90 minutes in the theater courtesy of up-and-coming playwright Theresa Rebeck.

None of it is really outloud funny, and the actors do the best with the material they have to work with. Reg Rogers plays the title character and has the moments in the play. When he is rehearsing the Kafka scenes, he brings the stage alive. The action star is played by Bradley Cooper, is all tan muscle and sunstreaked hair. He never really rises above the stereotypical “movie star.” Kristen Johnston, of 3rd Rock fame, rounds out the small cast as The Stage Manager, where she screams a lot.

Ms. Rebeck likes to work in the world of motives – I greatly enjoyed the MTC production of her play Mauritius last season, where her characters see and seize opportunity. They were in control of their world, and the drama came from the clash of these individual motives. In The Understudy, her characters are not in control of their destinies and “stuff” just happens to them. A cell phone rings, and it could be doom or bliss. An assistant might or might not turn the lights on. They all have reasons and motives for being there, but they effect each other to a minimal degree. All in all, it makes for not particularly interesting – or funny – theater.