When Joe DiPietro's Clever Little Lies gets going at the Westside Theatre, it almost immediately gives the impression that a sitcom pilot is about to unfold on stage -- and not just because onetime That Girl Marlo Thomas, who makes a later entrance, heads the cast and Greg (Mary Hartman Mary Hartman) Mullavey is second-billed.
But hang in there. Something more substantial than the makings for a half-hour comedy series is afoot. Before fade-out some substantive drama has occurred and has been skillfully directed by David Saint and played by all four concerned, which means George Merrick and Kate Wetherhead as well.
The premise for the trouble-making rigmarole is established when in the introductory scene Bill Sr. (Mullavey) and Bill Jr., or Billy (Merrick), have finished their tennis game and are gabbing in the changing room. It's typical father-son blather about who played well and who didn't. The mood changes as Billy suddenly breaks down and confesses that he's fallen for a 23-year-old personal trainer at his gym and has fallen out of love with wife Emily (Wetherhead), who now is only interested in their newborn.
Having sworn his father to secrecy, despite Bill Sr.'s insistence that wife Alice (Thomas) has her ways of distracting information from him, the two men part, and scene two commences. It's Bill Sr. and Alice at home, where, as the audience expected, she wangles the predicament out of hubby and goes right to the landline to invited the kids over for a little chat -- dangling the prospect of cheesecake in front of cheesecake-lover Emily.
Before the four convene, Billy and Emily talk on the way over in their automobile and exhibit mounting tension between them. For the rest of the intermissionless 90-minutes at the parents' abode, Alice tries to do some additional prying that'll result in Billy's divulging what's up with him and a happy resolution will be reached.
So far, so typically sitcom-y, no? But DiPietro, who does field any number of funny lines (wait for one that goes "I was hoping for something better"), finds a way to take the set-up deeper. Describing anything more about it falls under the subhead "spoiler." Therefore nothing further will be said, except to hint that DiPietro's concerns about the more serious consequences of marital infidelity come into play through a surprise tactic Alice employs either consciously or unconsciously.
It's probably not going too far to say that a revelation about uncertain domestic bliss explains Thomas's attraction to the script, which in some manner does bring into question the wisdom of the erstwhile television high-Q star's well-known "free to be you and me" attitude towards life.
Smart of her to take on the role, because she gives a deeply felt performance that, as her character's revelations affect Bill Sr. directly, also brings out depths in Mullavey's turn that hadn't been the sort of thing Clever Little Lies looked to hold in store when it began. The reversal of events draws additional strong responses from Merrick and Wetherhead, both of whom had been fine up until then and become that much finer.
Yoshi Tanokura designed the comfortable Alice-Bill Sr. suburban home, which features an upstage staircase to an unseen second floor. Eventually, there's a moment when Alice climbs those stairs, and Thomas makes it clear just how far from that girl she's traveled.
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Some years ago, Douglas Hodge was outstanding in a London revival of Harold Pinter's three-hander, The Caretaker. I know how good he was, because I saw him. I haven't watched him in other Pinter roles, but apparently he's done enough of them to be considered a valuable Pinter player.
If so, I wonder what Pinter would have made of Hodge's Old Times, the Roundabout revival of another of the Nobel Prize winner's three-handers. I certainly know what I think of it, and I'm tempted to say, "Not much."
But actually, this over-blown presentation comes off as an insult to Pinter and therefore requires more than a brush-off. From one perspective, it appears as if Pinter-associate Hodge has decided to send up his mentor for the pretensions hiding in a script where Deeley (Clive Owen in a Broadway debut) and Kate (Kelly Reilly, also in a Broadway debut) are hosting Kate's longtime friend but longtime unseen friend Anna (Eve Best, here before in Eugene O'Neill's Moon for the Misbegotten and Pinter's The Homecoming).
For 75 minutes -- word has it Hodge trimmed the Pinter pauses to attain that abbreviated length -- the three thrust and parry in an unspoken competition for king or queen of this particular mountain. They natter on about those titular old times that are best summed up in Anna's line about possibly remembering things that never happened. This, of course, does raise perfectly valid considerations that could reverberate meaningfully in productions other than this one.
For some reason, Hodge had designer Christine Jones provide an extremely tall backdrop of ever-widening circles that look like a vortex about to upload Deeley, Kate and Anna into infinity. (Is it a metaphor?) Equally startling, if not more, is the outsized, door-like block of seeming ice upstage center. Surely, Hodge isn't being this literal about the icy atmosphere just to make certain audience members get the point. Other unsubtle touches are rampant in Clive Goodwin's boisterous sound design.
But sets, lighting and sound are more or less incidental to Hodge's basic affront, which is how he's directed his three accomplished actors to carry on. It's in their performances that he's committed his most egregious errors. He's asked them to play with exaggerated archness. Lighting cigarettes non-stop and blowing plumes of smoke, they' re practically voguing as they arrange and rearrange themselves on the club chair and two divans down stage between the drinks carts.
Of Owens, Best and Reilly, it can be freely noted that they look swell-egant in Constance Hoffman's costumes. Individually, they're something to behold. More than that can't be ventured. They're obviously doing what Hodge has asked of them, but the over-the-top demonstrations don't help to establish the mysterious uncertainty Pinter was after.
Quite the opposite. With their hyper-kinetic actions, they're inadvertently making fun of Pinter's intentions, and, curiously enough, bringing to mind Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit more than Pinter would ever have appreciated.