ATW Review: A Couple's Dualities Revealed in Stitching

As Anthony Nielson's Stitching opens, Stu (Gian Murray Gianino) and Abby (Meital Dohan) seem to be a pretty normal thirtysomething couple coping with a very difficult situation: Abby's unwanted pregnancy, but within minutes, their conversation turns subtly hostile. One senses that this is a pair that is used to doing battle. By the time the play's second scene begins, and they've begun role-playing (college prostitute and her john), one knows that these two have a story that goes much deeper than one might ever have expected. Nielson has laid some fascinating groundwork very quickly in this brief (70 minute) one act play, a model of the popular British genre of "in-yer-face theatre," which attempts to shock audiences by extreme language, emotional frankness, and questioning of moral norms.

Nielson includes much of this during the scenes in which the two role-play, and these sequences seem all the more pungent when they're placed in between the often humorous scenes in which the couple continue with their conversations about whether or not Abby should have her baby. (Stu and Abby's attempts at a personality/compatibility quiz will amuse anyone who's ever been in a longish-term relationship.)

Strangely, though, throughout Stitching something doesn't seem to add up about these two. Nielson does eventually reveal the couple's complete (and tragic) tale, but the gnawing sense that something else is going on between Stu and Abby diminishes the impact of Nielson's shock techniques, particularly as the couple seems increasingly uncommitted to the violence and degradation they perpetrate on one another.

Initially we accept some of the pair's awkwardness, inferring that it's character-driven discomfort with the games they've undertaken. Ultimately, though, we realize that neither Dohan, who cuts a fine minx-like figure as Abby, nor Gianino, who works diligently to expose both Stu's macho and sensitive sides, are entirely at ease with the roller-coaster demands of Nielson's script. Both have moments when their performances crackle, but there are an equal number in which their work feels wooden and unduly forced.

Director Tim Haskell's almost leisurely, and at times foreboding (jarring string quartet music underscores costume changes between scenes), production only enhances what becomes growing disbelief in the events unfolding in the couple's meticulously appointed apartment (courtesy of designer Garin Marshall, who has also provided a gorgeously modulated lighting design). This tidy environment, like the play’s opening , belies the shocking flights found in Stitching, which sadly never cuts as deep as it might.

---- Andy Propst

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Stitching continues through July 19 at The Wild Project (195 East Third Street). Performances are Monday and Tuesday at 7pm; Wednesday through Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 2 and 8pm. Tickets are $45.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101 or by visiting www.OvationTix.com. Further information is available online at www.StitchingThePlay.com.