Review Roundup: TRUST

Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director) opened it's latest production, TRUST, starring Zach Braff, Bobby Cannavale, Sutton Foster, and Ari Graynor, on August 12. TRUST is written by Paul Weitz and directed by Peter DuBois. Mr. Weitz returns to Second Stage Theatre, where his plays Privilege and Show People premiered in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

Directed by Peter DuBois, who staged Second Stage's acclaimed production of Becky Shaw, TRUST began previews on Friday, July 23 at Second Stage Theatre (305 West 43rd street). The production runs through September 5.

Harry is rich. Harry is married. But when Harry doesn't trust any of it is enough, he looks to find something real in the most unlikely of places. Paul Weitz's dark comedy TRUST explores the corrosive effect of power on relationships and the hope we need to make them better.

Tickets are $70 and may be purchased by phoning 212-246-4422 or 800-766-6048 or online at www.2ST.com.

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: The essential premise of "Trust" - whose four-member cast is dexterously rounded out by Sutton Foster (as - yikes - the whip-cracking dominatrix), Ari Graynor and Bobby Cannavale - is that we all have feelings of worthlessness that translate into conflicting urges to control and be controlled. This would seem to be especially true in an age when megafortunes (like the one Harry acquired when he sold his Internet company in an inflationary moment) would seem to be within easy reach of everyone, making those who have them and those who do not feel equally unfulfilled.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, The New York Post: Braff (from TV's "Scrubs") is quite credible as Harry, a dot.com multimillionaire with too much money and not enough lovin'. His disgruntled wife, Aleeza (Graynor), has lost interest in their sex life. In fact, she's lost interest in pretty much anything that doesn't involve putting Harry down. Which is how he ends up hiring a professional dominatrix -- who turns out to be an old high-school classmate named Prudence (Foster).

Joe Dziemianowicz, Daily News: Weitz presumably has control in his crosshairs - who's got it and why money, whips and fists can't command it. It's a worthy topic and Weitz writes zingers like nobody's business, but the play collapses into contrived situations and shrill exchanges as couples crumble and recombine, if briefly. Watching four talented actors mired up to their thigh-high boots in mediocre material inevitably brings a sinking feeling.

Linda Winer, Newsday: It is hard to find a more engaging quartet of unlikable characters than the ones created by Zach Braff, Sutton Foster, Bobby Cannavale and Ari Graynor - the high-powered cast of "Trust." Paul Weitz's uneven but appealing psychosexual cartoon-comedy, directed with a light touch of darkness by the excellent Peter DuBois, asks this inexactly universal question: Why is it that neither great wealth,...

John Simon, Bloomberg.com: The bossing or being bossed is both comic and abject, both scary and ludicrous. Weitz's writing is always trenchant, humorously unsettling, and horribly believable. People may be bugs, as Prudence remarks, but here they are bugs gifted with prime dialogue. The plot is cunningly constructed so as to turn all the characters into more or less their opposites, but antithesis is no moral improvement, except perhaps in the end, when, on a Hawaii beach, there may be a precarious hope for two of them.

Robert Feldberg, Northjersey.com: The Tony-winning Foster shatters the notion that she can only play nice girls or comical ones in musicals. She's no-nonsense sexy, and bravely gives Prudence a hardness. There's the sense the character has lost her ability to feel and is only able to summon her inner strength with strangers. Cannavale is terrifically amusing as the fast-talking, brainy Morton ("I belong to a club inside Mensa that excludes the regular members of Mensa for being too stupid"), who's fashioned an image of himself as a thug.

Michael Sommers, Newjerseynewsroom.com: How everything works out semi-happily might not totally satisfy audiences. Certain developments are dubious or seem insufficiently motivated. Harry's rather blank character needs deeper writing from Weitz or at least a far more shaded depiction than Braff's wimpy nice guy. If the play is imperfect, the laughs are frequent and Peter DuBois stages it smoothly with sleek Manhattan sets by Alexander Dodge.

Roma Torre, NY1.com: Musical stage star Sutton Foster takes on the role of Prudence aka Mistress Carol. And though I have no pictures to show, she initially enters in full S&M regalia playing a dominatrix. To her credit, shedding her "G" rating for an "R" she's pretty convincing. She finds herself in an awkward relationship with an old schoolmate, TV's Zach Braff playing Harry, a millionaire whose newfound fortune has brought him little happiness.

Brendan Lemon, Financial Times: This two-hour production, directed by Peter DuBois, is highly enjoyable, even if its highlights dissolve by the morrow. In 2010, there is nothing especially memorable about the explicit confessions of the masochist, portrayed with low-grade charm by Zach Braff, to the dominatrix: the stunning Sutton Foster, skilful in the use of a bull whip. Weitz's play, which starts in an over-stylish red-and-black-velvet dungeon, is more a study in marital relationships than a sex comedy. It concerns that reluctant masochist, Harry, and the anomie he experiences after his internet company is sold for more than $300m and he is left with little besides a do-gooding private foundation and a depressed wife who reads Stieg Larsson while he pleasures her.

Erik Haagensen, Backstage.com : Second Stage Theatre seems to be out to corner the market on emptiness. Hot on the heels of its uptown production of the vacant but flashy "Bachelorette," we get Paul Weitz's schematic, wafer-thin "Trust." You'd think a play featuring Sutton Foster as a professional dominatrix would at least keep your mind off the grocery list. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong.