How can Sarah Paulson and Bobby Cannavale be so riveting in the black comedy The Gingerbread House, but so lackluster co-starring on ABC’s romantic drama Cupid? As a mother who sells her children for more freedom (and $25,000), the brittle Paulson (who always seems more at ease wearing a smirk than a rom-com smile) finds her talents better served than as the no-nonsense therapist on Cupid. And Cannavale’s innately dangerous persona, his bull-like presence and thick, rough voice, is far more compatible with the manipulative co-worker and baby broker he plays here, rather than the self-consciously whimsical matchmaker who believes he’s the actual god of love.
Playwright Mark Schultz (who favors dialogue studded with compulsive pauses and expletives) holds up a pitiless magnifying glass to the innumerable, minor self-deceptions we indulge in to make life easier. New travel agent Collin (Ben Rappaport) is convinced that he’ll be able to prosper in a dying field if only ace saleswoman Stacey (Paulson) can give him some tips. Stacey’s client Fran (Jackie Hoffman) forces herself to believe that a vacation can magically fix a life that’s collapsing before her disbelieving eyes. And Brian (a wonderfully smarmy Jason Butler Harner) thinks that if he and Stacey sell their children, life will be immeasurably better for them both.
So Brian forces Stacey to admit that she doesn’t like their two children, that their son and daughter would be better off with another family. Numbed by the compromises that come with adulthood, Stacey is eventually won over to Brian’s plan, and his co-worker Marco (Cannavale) comes to the rescue, promising that the kids will be fine with a wealthy, barren couple he knows in Eastern Europe. And while things go quite well for a while—Stacey particularly enjoys the comforts of grocery shopping sans kids—the ambition that prompted Brian to suggest selling their offspring becomes more and more dangerous. As Marco exerts an ever-growing influence over her husband, Stacey starts toting up the cost of their ambitions and tries to escape from the self-delusions in which she’s found refuge.
Rarely offstage, Paulson delivers a masterful performance as a reluctant mother who starts to believe that her children are albatrosses around her neck. But as Brian spends more and more time with Marco (Harner and Cannavale’s scenes crackle with sexual tension) and her dreams become more disturbing, Stacey starts to crack. The final confrontation scene between Paulson, Cannavale and Harner may drag on a bit, but Paulson brings a ferocious energy to the embattled Stacey, a woman who has discovered too late that she does love her children. And Paulson never lets vanity interfere with her performance; just as you’re inwardly congratulating her for perfecting the no-crinkle crying face that consists entirely of huge tears rolling down her face, she lets strings of saliva drip from her mouth and onto her hands. Though she never asks you to like or even empathize with Stacey, Paulson makes damn sure that you pay attention to her.
>The Gingerbread House
Through May 10, The Rattlestick Theatre, 224 Waverly Pl. (betw. Perry & W. 11th Sts.), 212-868-4444; times vary, $40.
