Review Roundup: POCATELLO, Starring T.R. Knight, Opens Off-Broadway

Playwrights Horizons' production of POCATELLO, the world premiere of a new play by Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale at PH, The Few, A Bright New Boise), is directed by Davis McCallum (The Whale at PH, The Few, London Wall, A Bright New Boise, Water by the Spoonful). The production opens tonight, December 15 and will play through Sunday evening, January 4, 2015.

The cast stars Jessica Dickey, Tony Award nominee Jonathan Hogan, Brian Hutchison, Leah Karpel, television and stage star T.R. Knight, Cameron Scoggins, Obie and Drama Desk awards winner Brenda Wehle, Danny Wolohan, Elvy Yost, and Crystal Finn.

Eddie (Knight) manages an Italian chain restaurant in POCATELLO - a small, unexceptional American city that is slowly being paved over with strip malls and franchises.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: Toward the conclusion of Samuel D. Hunter's "Pocatello," an old-fashioned drama about dead-end lives, an unhappy restaurant manager played by T. R. Knight laments the interchangeability of American towns. He describes the monotonous vista he sees driving home -- punctuated by the sights of a Starbucks, a Walmart, a Burger King -- and says wearily, "I don't know where I live anymore." At that moment, I couldn't help identifying with this sad sack, and not just because Mr. Knight seems so emotionally invested in his role. All through the production...I kept envisioning a similar terrain. But my landmarks weren't chain restaurants and big-box stores. Instead, I saw books, movies and plays stretching back to the beginning of the 20th century, dotting an unending plain of small-town American loneliness...As staged by Mr. McCallum, "Pocatello" has compelling theatrical energy only when its scrapping characters talk over one another, evoking that anxious smog of restaurant noise that hangs over so many American nights out. It's when the individual voices assert themselves that the play can feel as droopy as the defeated souls who inhabit it.

Jennifer Farrar, Associated Press: The loss of individuality in small-town America takes a beating in "Pocatello," a new play by Samuel D. Hunter...The death of local culture and small family businesses by relentlessly advancing big-box franchises is the villain in Hunter's quirky, sometimes bleak new work. A touching production, which somehow succeeds at being both heartbreaking and funny, opened Monday off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons...An excellent cast, thoughtfully directed by Davis McCallum, brings freshness to seemingly stereotypical characters and economic misfortunes. The play centers on Eddie, impressively played with sweet vulnerability and smiling desperation by T.R. Knight.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: Samuel D. Hunter made a splash a couple of years ago with "The Whale," an offbeat play about a 600-pound man determined to eat himself to death as a desperate protest gesture. Compared to that highly original piece, his new play, "Pocatello," presents itself as a structurally ambitious, but basically conventional, domestic tear-jerker about a sensitive gay man who can't get any love or respect from his cold-hearted relatives or the clueless employees he considers his extended family...Hunter's point seems to be that families use language like a weapon, to hurt and wound and even kill. But for all that glib talk, there is no actual communication. A master plot manipulator like Alan Ayckbourn can pull off this mechanical trick, but Hunter's simplistic (and deeply annoying) technique -- of having characters simply evade or ignore direct questions put to them -- isn't the way to go.

Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News: Pasta, breadsticks and misery are on the menu in Samuel D. Hunter's sincere but static play, "Pocatello," starring T.R. Knight. The "Grey's Anatomy" alum plays Eddie, manager of a chain restaurant much like Olive Garden in a deeply depressed town in Idaho. The killer economy has wrought havoc. The business is going under...As a comment on hard times and the way we live now, Hunter, a newly minted MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient, serves a topical but not so illuminating work. But there's fine ensemble work under the direction of Davis McCallum. Knight's sympathetic portrait is especially persuasive and offers something to chew on.

Jason Clark, Entertainment Weekly: Hunter, as warmhearted a dramatist as can be experienced these days, crafts Pocatello as if it were a Robert Altman film; in fact, the opening scenes contain overlapping dialogue straight out of Nashville. This may not be his most ambitious work to date and, frankly, there are some hiccups -- the female characters are a tad grating to start and the contained narrative is a bit too contrived -- but the playwright continues to be unerringly exact at gently discovering his characters' delicate foibles, where a decadent sip of a glass of wine or an unexpected heart-to-heart tells you everything you need to know. And carrying on Hunter's tradition of rich leading roles, T.R. Knight is terrific...Tucked into the surroundings like a Chihuahua amidst barking attack dogs, the actor effortlessly commands our sympathy with an almost Chaplin-like simplicity...He and his truly fine costars ensure that Pocatello is a satisfying full-course meal, gluten and all. B+

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Photo Credit: Jeremy Daniel

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