Playwright: James Sherman
At: Victory Gardens
Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln
Phone: 773-871-3000; $20-$45
Runs through: July 13
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
James Sherman's world-premiere comedy Relatively Close has a thoroughly manufactured quality of a TV sitcom mixed with a Neil Simon play. If that's your thing, by all means go to the Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre and laugh your head off.
But Sherman's cadre of quirky characters for Relatively Close feels like mixed-and-matched oddball patches deliberately sewn together to clash. Instead of letting the comedy develop organically or pushing it be a breakneck farce to match John C. Stark's handsome two-tier multiple bedroom set, Sherman's formulaic construction feels like a set-up.
That sitcom impression also extends to an Act II moment when two disparate characters bond over the realization that they don't have to live up to labels and stereotypes applied to them ( cue audience to go: 'Awwww' ) . The hurriedly pat solution to the show's major conflict also feels like a sitcom neatly wrapping up its issue/conflict of the week.
Relatively Close pits three grown Jewish sisters and their diverse spouses against each other as they vacation in the family's disputed Michigan beach house. Since the house wasn't bequeathed to a particular sister, they spar about what's to become of it.
The eldest, Jan ( Penny Slusher ) , is a perky Republican aldermanic candidate for Chicago's 43rd Ward who is married to wealthy Iranian-American businessman Yousef ( Usman Ally ) . She wants to sell the house for a multi-million dollar profit and she'll use her surface niceness to ruthlessly get her way.
Much-married middle sister Beth ( Laura T. Fisher ) and her new African-American husband, Arthur ( Dexter Zollicoffer ) , try to use his position as a Chicago college provost to make over the beachhouse as a summer artists colony. Youngest daughter Marlene ( Wendi Weber ) wants to keep the house in the family, though she appears to be easily swayed. ( Marlene also has a clinical shyness disorder, so she uses a ventriloquist's dummy to help her break the ice ) .
Add into that mix Beth's antisocial teenage son named Dylan ( David Gonzalez ) who does slam poetry and Marlene's overly sarcastic ( and unfaithful ) Jewish husband, Ron ( Daniel Cantor ) . With such a diverse familial crowd the fur flies on cue, though the wounds are only light scratches ( this is comedy resembling a sitcom after all ) .
Each one of the actors does good comedic duty, through some like Cantor and Slusher push harder than necessary. Director Dennis Zacek manages the comic timing well, through the expansive and detailed set feels underutilized ( characters not conversing in scenes are left to do silent busywork in their respective rooms when they would normally be offstage ) .
Relatively Close at has all the earmarks of a mainstream crowd-pleaser. And in this summer season, that's just fine. Just don't look too closely or you'll notice the obvious seams joining it all together.