Joe Urla and Ashley Austin Morris in Tony Glazer’s In The Daylight / Photo by Gili Getz
Why isn’t Ashley Austin Morris a star yet? After co-appearing as Charles Busch’s vengeful daughter in Die Mommie Die! and stealing the show in Fringe offering Paper Dolls, she’s toiling away in Tony Glazer’s melodramatic thriller In the Daylight—and I grow impatient for her to appear in a show worthy of her talents.
Until then, at least she’s the bright spot in In the Daylight, about prodigal son Martin (Joseph Urla) returning home for the first time since his father died of a heart attack six years before. During those six years, he’s written a best-selling book about the importance of family, one that bears little relation to his actual feelings for his sister Jessie (Sharon Maguire) and mother Elizabeth (Concetta Tomei)—especially since he claims he’s only made the trip because he thinks he’ll get the chance to see Elizabeth die. Needless to say, things don’t go according to plan.
First, there’s the strange man who keeps wandering around the slanted set from designer Christopher Barreca, a man no one seems to notice. Then there’s the funeral urn prominently displayed near the front door. And reports of Elizabeth’s imminent death have been greatly exaggerated. Plus there’s a hurricane raging outside (as there often is in these types of stories) and Martin has accidentally brought home a fan, a woman named Charlotte (Morris) who has followed him from the airport to return his BlackBerry. And though it hardly needs to be mentioned, over the course of one dark and stormy night, secrets are revealed and loyalties are tested as Martin discovers the truth about his father’s death and Charlotte turns out to be not quite who she claims to be.
All of which would make for an enjoyably lowbrow evening at the theater if the acting were stronger. Tomei is, to put it kindly, not shown to her best advantage. Stumbling over her lines, stepping on her co-stars’ cues, and generally seeming uncertain of what she’s supposed to be doing next, she brings down the pacing and the tension and compensates for her inadequacies by roaring out the insults she throws in Martin’s direction.
As the dutiful daughter, Maguire overplays Jessie’s exasperation in the first act, but nails the character’s sudden about-face in the second. And Urla does a fine job as the increasingly confused Martin, a man who smugly thinks he holds all the cards when he arrives, only to find himself in over his head by night’s end.
Only Morris seems to know that Glazer’s purple dialogue cries out for a touch of camp. With her distinctive cracked voice, she applies a topspin to Charlotte’s lines that elevates them far above the rest of Glazer’s familial dark comedy (his second in as many years, after last’s year Stain), turning what could have been an overwrought revelation into an improbably funny-scary scene. By the time Charlotte reveals her own secret, Martin and family have receded to the background for us as a talented actress suddenly makes the play we’ve been moderately interested in take flight.
Through Oct. 11. At the McGinn Cazale Theatre. 2162 Broadway (betw. W. 76th St. & 77th Sts.), 212-579-0528; $35.
