Love's Lingo Lost
OK, listen to this one: A linguist loses his wife because he cant communicate with her. No, its not a throwaway 1960s comedy that turned into a smash hit back then because the drugs were better. Thats the actual plot of Julia Chos play [The Language Archive], being given a sumptuous new production Off-Broadway by Roundabout Theatre Company that cant disguise how thin the show is.
Chos character and situations all feel like faded carbons of Sarah Ruhl, from the linguists wife warning him of her impending departure via notes hidden throughout the house to the hurried and flat wrap up at the shows end. But Ruhl still manages to tug at your emotions, even as her shows feel less impressive. Chos play about love and language keeps us at a chilly distance.
Chos stock characters certainly dont invite empathy: the linguist who cant comprehend emotional responses; the love-struck assistant; the battling but ultimately adorable older couple. Everyone talks a lot about love (often in different languages), but theres never been less of an emotional connection between characters and the audience.
The actors try like hell. Matt Letscher nails the emotionally dead George, getting in touch with his feelings too late for a happy ending with his wife, Mary (Heidi Schreck, who fares better with the more stylized second act). And Jayne Houdyshell and John Horton give everything theyve got to Alta and Resten, who have been flown in to archive their almost dead language for George, but spend most of the play arguing in English over her cooking and his selfishness.
Then theres Betty Gilpin, whose thin performance as Georges assistant Emma is the only one on stage that doesnt offer glimmers of a deep inner life. Shes also one of those actors who resort to letting her hands slap against her legs to punctuate sentences, one of my particular pet peeves. Believe me, once you start noticing performers doing it, youll never be able to avoid seeing it again. Shes supposed to be an ingénue, but she comes across as forced bright cheer, like a cartoon character with pinwheels for eyes.
As these characters (most of whom are multi-lingual) fumble for the words to express their feelings, Cho raises interesting points about how we use language in our everyday life; one of the shows few genuinely touching moments comes when George begs his wife to return to him, because theyre the only two people in the world who speak their shared language.
But Cho consistently chooses quirks over substance, all of which have been burnished into precociousness by director Mark Brokaw. A letter literally falls from the sky at an opportune moment; Emma begins to go blind from unrequited love for George; and the final scene finds all of the actors recapping the rest of the characters lives, a device more befitting a high school-set film than a play about the poetry and emotionalism of words. But one mans poetry is another mans doggerel.
[The Language Archive]
Through Dec. 19, Laura Pels Theatre, 111 W. 46th St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.), 212-719-1300; $71–$81.