“Cloudy with a
Chance of Gumballs”
When it comes to movie titles that include the names of famous, still working actors, I can think only of Being John Malkovich. I can’t, however, come up with a play that does so (can you?) other than Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson, by Rob Ackerman, which just opened at Off Broadway’s A.R.T. /New York Theatres in a Working Theatre production. (Note: a day after posting this I spotted the title of a new novel by Kerry Winfrey, Waiting for Tom Hanks.)
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| Jonathan Sale (below), Dean Nolen, George Hampe. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
Wilson (Bottle Rocket, Legally Blonde, The
Royal Tenenbaums) himself doesn’t appear in it but a striking
facsimile does in the person of Jonathan Sale (a slender actor stuffed just
enough to suggest Wilson’s having recently packed on a few because of the
generous catering provisions available).
The play itself is a slim, 75-minute, semi-absurdist, oddball
farce inspired by events surrounding the making of an AT&T smartphone commercial
in 2010. The commercial, seen
here, was one of a series, and not only starred Wilson but was directed by
famed documentarian Errol Morris (David Wohl).
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| Dean Nolen, George Hampe. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
Its intention is to satirize what happens when Morris’s (The
Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) eccentric directorial demands
clash with the requirements of corporate advertising. It offers some insights
into the behind-the-cameras operations of commercial-making and also comments
on whether or not celebrities doing commercials is somehow beneath them. Woody
Allen, it’s noted, did his in Japan as a way of avoiding scrutiny at home.
While the play is sometimes cute, sometimes quirky, sometimes
funny, and more times not, it remains consistently watchable thanks to the cleverly
humorous direction of Theresa Rebeck, better known as a respected, prolific
playwright (with four Broadway plays to her credit). Rebeck is wise enough to
know that, despite the silliness of the circumstances, the best way to present
them is to keep a straight face and take things seriously. Under her command,
the actors know just when to overplay (rarely) and when to underplay; keeping their
touch light, for the most part, they manage to keep all those gumballs in the
air.
Ah, yes. Those gumballs. The play says that 500 of them (which
seems low when you view the actual commercial)—representing the red dots on AT&T
rival Verizon’s connectivity map—had to be dropped from above on Wilson as he
said his lines. They began slowly and then turned into a torrent that he calmly
stemmed by popping open an umbrella. (Some sources say they were marbles.)
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| Reyna de Courcy, Jonathan Sale (below), George Hampe. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
In the play, those responsible for pouring the gumballs are
a middle-aged special effects man, Ken (Dean Nolen), and his young, fast-talking,
insecure yet dedicated assistant, Rob (George Hampe). The latter is based on the playwright, himself a professional prop master.
Also involved are Jenny (Reyna de Courcy), the young, enthusiastic,
entry-level props person, awed to be working with Wilson and Morris, and Alice
(Ann Harada, Cinderella), the ambitious, seriously professional, first assistant
director. (Harada also appears in a flashback as an Australian director.)
Conflicts begin to arise during repeat takes of the
commercial when Rob’s insecurity is triggered by his having been praised for a
good job on the first take. This leads to subsequent screwups, which cause Wilson
to be struck by a gumball, an effect Morris finds so interesting he insists
that many more gumballs be dropped directly on the actor’s head, despite the
pain Wilson’s already experienced.
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| Jonathan Sale, Reyna de Courcy, George Hampe, Ann Harada, David Wohl. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
Because women read more and write more and care more and work harder and do better at almost everything, so we need to be heard-- in the workplace and in the halls of power and the hallways of schools-- ’cause we are so fucking sick of bloated old white men telling us what’s right and what’s true in the world.
These outbursts may have serious goals but they deflect from the play's comedic style and implicit purposes by drawing attention to their polemics.
As things heat up, Morris
remains preternaturally cool, enjoying his ability to make demands no matter
whose heads roll for insisting otherwise. His readiness to defy union rules
borders on the chilling. Wohl (Golden Boy, Fiddler on the Roof),
often delivering Morris’s thoughts via a handheld mike, carries it all off with
memorable assurance.
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| Dean Nolen, Reyna de Courcy, George Hampe, Ann Harada. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
Christopher Swader and Justin Swader’s impressive-looking
set, spread across a wide expanse of A.R.T.’s Mezzanine Theatre, with the
audience facing it on several rows of bleacher seats, represents a greenscreen space
in a Brooklyn Navy Yard film studio. Director chairs sit amid the lighting equipment,
reflectors, and cables. Eventually, red gumballs litter the stage, forcing the
actors to walk around and on them, crushing any in their path. (Impossible if
they were marbles, of course.)
Mary Ellen Stebbins’s lighting is fine, Yana Biryukova’s video
design fits perfectly, Tricia Barsamian’s costumes are all appropriate, and Bart Fasbender's sound design excellent.
Even with the occasional shifts from comic realism to more
surrealistic moments, the basic situation begins to seem like an overextended
sketch. Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson is a dramatized anecdote that doesn’t
really offer that much to chew on but, like a gumball, tastes good while it lasts.
A.R.T./New York Theatres/Mezzanine
Theatre
502 W. 53rd St., NYC
Through July 6
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