David (Ze’ev Barmor, left) and Denise (Darby McDonough) go over David’s not very promising commercial script, in Jeff and Jacob Foy’s The Z Team.
It may be an overgeneralization, but let’s put it out there: In stage comedies, the more the cast laughs at its own purportedly hilarious exploits, the less the audience does. The onstage hollers and whoops are frequent and loud in The Z Team, Jeff and Jacob Foy’s workplace yuk-fest at Theatre Row, and while some of the audience seemed to enjoy it, those seated in E1 and E2 barely cracked a smile.
It’s no pleasure to report this. The Foys, a Hoosier father-and-son team, write in a program note how The Z Team, their New York debut (Dad’s also an ER doctor), is “the wacky, witty show full of laughter and joy that we always dreamed of creating.” Couldn’t we all use that right now? They start with a premise that’s a bit leaky to begin with, and the implausibilities proliferate.
Olivia (Allie Trimm) and Kenzie (Tyler Cruz) are relative islands of calm, even in a men’s room stall.
The action is set in an ad agency office, represented by Scott Aronow’s very basic set. How big an agency? That’s increasingly unclear, as the owner, Jerry (Drew Starlin), has only one client, Diana (Gabrielle Filloux), who’s threatening to pull all her accounts. Yet apparently the staff is large, and there’s always a line for the ladies’ room. That’s only so that two female staff members can eventually have a scene in two men’s room stalls, one of many jokes that don’t land.
Jerry does have one incoming account: Tiffany (also Filloux), his mistress, who has invented what she’s sure will be a blockbuster, has a meeting tomorrow with potential investors, and needs a commercial by then. The product: Bend and Blend, a $49.95 blender affixed to a yoga mat, because Tiffany can’t finish her yoga routine without a smoothie. So Jerry, reluctantly assisted by his second-in-command Graham (Joe Mucciolo), whose chief comic trait is that he’s gay, cranks up the sole plot engine: to assign this one to the least talented staff members, the “Z Team,” because then at least Jerry will be able to fire them when they fail, and thus reduce payroll. See the lapses in logic piling up?
So let’s meet the incompetents, each with a single personality trait that gets flogged into the floorboards: David (Ze’ev Barmor), the writer, whose main talent is devising puns that would make even punsters groan. Rob (Jacob Martinez Cooper), on payroll only because he’s Jerry’s nephew, is a lazy lout whose chief interest is bacon. Kenzie (Tyler Cruz) directs commercials; she has so little confidence that she grants an actor’s request to use a Scottish accent, though he’s playing a Mexican. Denise (Darby McDonough), the resident leading lady, is undeservedly narcissistic. Olivia (Allie Trimm), the accountant, is competent and sensible, she’s just never worked on an ad campaign before, but is recruited because—oh, who knows why.
Tiffany (Gabrielle Filloux) needs Jerry’s (Drew Starlin) help in making a hit of the Bend and Blend. Photographs by Rebecca J. Michelson.
Do you detect a Producers payoff, with this ragtag team coming up with something Tiffany will love? All in good time, but first there are the romantic complications to sort out; this agency has more affairs going on than Mad Men. Olivia’s attracted, inexplicably, to David. Graham, having lost track of old flame Duke Razor (Starlin), a Hell’s Angel who will reappear under unlikely circumstances, lusts in what’s meant to be a comical way after Rob, who’s resolutely straight. Rob broke up with Kenzie over a misunderstanding involving Denise. All the personal conflicts will be resolved, in ways one can generally see coming a mile down the pike; but first there will be a lot of flailing, shouting, and all that onstage, if not offstage, laughter.
Director Jeff Whiting encourages big gestures, overemphatic line readings, and excessive blocking. (He does craft one fine sight gag, Starlin’s burly Duke Razor repeatedly high-fiving Cooper’s Rob, and pummeling him in the process.) McDonough is the guiltiest overactor, barking her lines and sashaying across the stage like a RuPaul contestant, but pumped-up-to-11 is the default mode of most of the cast. That’s why the lower-key Cruz and Trimm are so welcome: Both play relatively sane characters, and both display regular-size emotions.
The overstatement does subside toward the last 20 minutes or so, and some caricatures turn into humans. Rob and Kenzie come to an understanding, though whatever it is that humanized Rob remains offstage, and David and Olivia turn into a couple, though what Olivia sees in him is a mystery. The Foys intended a forget-your-troubles-come-on-get-happy lark, and I salute them for trying, but they demonstrated haphazard skills at best. Finally, if you really can’t finish your yoga workout without a smoothie, lay down your mat, plug in a blender nearby, and push Puree. Poof, you’ve just saved yourself $49.95.
The Z Team runs at Theatre Row (410 W. 42nd St.) through Nov. 23. Evening performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:00 p.m. and Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m.; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and 3:00 p.m. Sunday. For tickets, visit www.thezteamshow.com.
Playwrights: Jeff Foy and Jacob Foy
Director: Jeff Whiting
Scenic Design: Scott Aronow
Lighting Design: Corey Goulden-Naitove
Costume Design: Matthew Pachtman
Sound Design: Shannon Slaton
