Only Without Another Choice

  The levels of vicarious embarrassment are off the charts for the audience during It Must Be Him. Watching a talented cast give their all to a production number involving dog collars and massive dildos is a surprising way to invoke sympathy for actors who, up until that point, seemed to be sleepwalking through a mediocre script. Not to mention the hoary gags, straight out of a particularly bad episode of a ’70s variety show, the dated punchlines and the lack of talent on the part of the screenwriter main character.  

That screenwriter, Louie (played by a game but ultimately defeated Peter Scolari), is frantically trying to get a screenplay produced after decades of rejection. His house is at stake, the younger man he met months ago and invited to move into his guesthouse isn’t putting out and he has an unhealthy obsession with his dead parents and high school girlfriend, who appear to him occasionally as hallucinations. Louie’s worried that times have passed by him and his rim-shot comedy writing; clearly, playwright and variety show veteran Kenny Solms doesn’t suffer from the same fear— though it would have been wise to rethink most of his script, which includes a sassy Latina housekeeper, a dated dating show spoof and a highly unlikely (and much undeserved) happy ending. All of which might be bearable in a kitschy sort of way, except that in Louie, Solms has created one of the most annoying characters in recent memory.

Still clinging to his internalized homophobia and worrying what his parents might think if he rewrites his stultifying romantic comedy into a gay romance (which it is, anyway, since he’s based the whole thing on himself and that younger housemate of his), Louie sleeps next to his Emmy Award, answers every question with a quip and lusts after the uninterested Scott (Patrick Cummings). Watching a middle-aged man whining about his stalled career and whinnying about the impossibility of writing a movie with two gay leads is both infuriating and depressing for those of us who have yet to reach middle age.

In addition to Scolari and Cummings, the over-qualified cast includes Tony nominees Alice Playten as Louie’s dead mother (setting the stage for some hilarious Jewish mother jokes—for vintage Catskills audiences) and Stephanie D’Abruzzo as Louie’s high school girlfriend and various female characters. They acquit themselves well, but that’s really all anyone in the cast can do.

Director Daniel Kutner is stymied by the first third of the play, which concludes with a reading of Louie’s script—which he has rewritten to reflect everything that happened after the lights came up. Sitting through the same situations twice doesn’t make them any funnier, and Kutner seems to have given up on trying. The rest of the show flies by, as Solms takes us to rehearsals for the stage musical of Louie’s script (at which point lyricist Ryan Cunningham and composer Larry Grossman give us that dildo song), then to a fantasy dating show that reeks of ’70s cheese. There’s been a distinct lack of delirious train wrecks along the lines of It Must be Him (Viagra Falls next door came close), but I’m not sure that’s a reason to choose Him—unless you’re an Alice Playten completist.

-- It Must Be Him Through Sept. 26 Peter J. Sharp Theater 416 W. 42nd St. (betw. 9th & 10th Aves.) 212-279-4200; $65