"The Four of Us" Takes Two

The Four of Us

By Itamar Moses

Directed by Kyle Fabel; Scene Designer, Bill Clarke; Costume Designer, Deborah Newhall; Lighting Designer, Brian J. Lilienthal; Stage Manager, Emily F. McMullen

Featuring Jed Orlemann (David) and Bhavesh Patel (Benjamin)

Performances through May 11 at Merrimack Repertory Theatre

Box Office 978-654-4MRT or www.merrimackrep.org

The Four of Us by Itamar Moses tells the story of the friendship between two writers. And therein lies the problem. It is a talky play with very little that shows why these two guys were friends to begin with, [SPOILER ALERT] so it is totally predictable when their relationship crashes and burns. One of the non-linear scenes in the show takes place at the Young Musicians camp where David (Jed Orlemann) and Benjamin (Bhavesh Patel) meet at the age of 15 and bond over smoking cigarettes. Having spent numerous summers at overnight camp myself, I understand how people of different temperaments and philosophies can become fast friends for life from sharing camp experiences, but smoking is a bit one-dimensional to build a relationship upon. In all of their scenes together, I never got the feeling that David, a struggling playwright, and Benjamin, a novelist, actually like each other. Benjamin certainly likes himself, perhaps too much, while David was apparently absent when they were handing out self-esteem. He measures himself in comparison to Benjamin who, for his part, is served by quietly basking in the glow of David's adulation.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre presents the regional premiere of The Four of Us only months after its Off-Broadway debut in New York City. Although it is a two-character play, the title refers to their egos and the changes that the young men go through during the ten-year span covered in the story. Director Kyle Fabel, who also works as an actor, has a personal understanding of the difficult emotions they experience as one or the other receives acclaim because he has lived through it with his own friends.

The play's themes of friendship and envy ring true, especially since the 30-year old playwright acknowledges that he didn't need to do any research for the script. While it has been intimated that The Four of Us reflects Moses' own relationship with novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, autobiographical or not, the structure of the play jumping forward and backward in time works against the characters conveying any solid connection to each other and the audience being able to connect with them. By beginning at the beginning of the end of the friendship when David learns the size of Benjamin's novel's pay dirt (size matters), Moses brings us into the already established relationship at a watershed moment. At this juncture, David's uneasiness is palpable, while Benjamin is relaxed and confident, but with a high smarminess quotient. I kept waiting for a scene in which they would be comfortable and joyful with each other, but they had more chemistry with a human-size teddy bear prop.

Moses and the actors are successful in dramatizing the characters' diverse approaches to life vis-à-vis writing, relationships with women, and embracing their celebrity with the public. As a play about friendship, it does illustrate that changing life circumstances alter the nature of the relationship and that both parties have to work at nurturing it if they want it to continue. But other than the common arena of writing, which David and Benjamin experience so differently from one another, their get togethers and conversations seem forced, at best, and sometimes downright painful. They are both so self-absorbed that each needs the other to affirm his worth and stoke his ego, not to provide the natural give and take of a meaningful friendship. Maybe the dialogue reflects the way twenty-somethings actually talk to each other, or more to the point, at each other, but there is woefully little that passes for substance between them. Given that the characters are writers, I'd expect them to be more articulate. Otherwise, they might just as well be competing athletes or rival chefs in a trendy restaurant.

The set design, which features an entire wall of black and white photos of the two, highlights their separateness and individuality while underlining their vanity. Lighting is used to good effect to segment areas of the stage into dorm room, public book reading venue, camp, and theatre. Costume choices subtly indicate age changes and divergent economic status, particularly in the opening restaurant scene when David is fulfilling a promise to treat Benjamin to lunch for selling his first novel. The former is wearing rumpled jeans and toting a beat-up canvas messenger bag, while the latter's jeans are creased and crisp and his bag is smooth, shiny leather. In the next to last scene when his play is finally being performed, David is dressed in a nice suit befitting his new level of success. Together the men go through a considerable number of cigarettes (a stereotypical artistic accouterment) and the smoke wafting into the audience is annoying.

What is clear is that a lot of hard work went into this MRT production, but the foundation of the relationship between David and Benjamin is shaky and needs shoring up. I like the bones of the story and think that the growing older/growing apart theme is definitely worth examining, but the muddled timeline is confusing and counterproductive. When the friendship is put to the test, the young men don't do so well. Perhaps the playwright could provide some remediation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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