AP News, October 4th, 2007
Nobody can do menace quite like F. Murray Abraham, a man born to inhabit sinister.
The actor expertly demonstrates how in "Mauritius," Theresa Rebeck's slick, often unconvincing new play that can't quite make up its mind about what it wants to be. Abraham isn't even the main character, but his formidable presence dominates the evening's convoluted action.
"Neither one of us is a lamb," Abraham's character coos to the play's nominal lead, a combative young woman portrayed by Alison Pill. But, boy, do you believe him.
Rebeck has a distinct voice, often comic, often filled with outrage. It's one that has most successfully found its bearings in such works as "Bad Dates," an enumeration of one woman's disastrous encounters with the opposite sex, and "The Scene," her scathing look at four trendy, upwardly mobile Manhattanites.
In "Mauritius," which Manhattan Theatre Club opened Thursday at its Biltmore Theatre, Rebeck's style is more diffuse, diluted by the uncertainty of the play itself. Its unwieldy plot veers from a David Mamet-like caper (complete with a flurry of four-letter words) involving a rare stamp collection to a soggy tale of two quarreling siblings to the intriguing interaction between two of the play's more off-kilter characters.
And director Doug Hughes has a hard time corralling all three parts into a credible whole.
It's those stamps _ specifically two rarities from the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius _ that sets the play in motion. Jackie (Pill) and her half-sister Mary (Katie Finneran) are battling over their late mother's collection. Both want it: Jackie to sell; Mary seemingly for more altruistic reasons.
Jackie tries to find a buyer and gets involved with three rather shady players in the world of philately. Philip (Dylan Baker) owns a stamp shop where Jackie seeks an appraisal. Dennis (Bobby Cannavale) is a smoothie, who wants to introduce Jackie to a fanatical collector named Sterling, the man played with consummate, foul-mouthed villainy by Abraham.
It's the negotiations between Jackie and Sterling that are the best part of the play, particularly the collector's near monologue detailing why the young woman should accept a suitcase filled with money in exchange for the stamps. The writing is tough and direct _ Rebeck at her best. And Abraham, quivering with delight at touching these philatelic treasures, delivers it with icy brilliance.
Pill has a difficult role to pull off, and, for the most part, she succeeds. Jackie is a desperate, damaged young woman who is looking for some respect and maybe a little love. She finds a bit of both from Dennis, portrayed by Cannavale with a sly, wise-guy charm. The man may be a charlatan, too, but he's easily the most ingratiating character in a play populated by opportunists.
Less successful are the screaming matches between the two sisters, verbal fisticuffs that deliver the siblings' sudsy back story and their almost nonexistent relationship with each other. Finneran, as the older sister, is one of those actresses who naturally exudes a ditsy sweetness. She displayed it most appealingly in such comedies as Neil Simon's "Proposals" and the 2001 Broadway revival of "Noises Off." Here, she's required to be _ well, not very nice _ and it's an awkward fit.
The same goes for a strident Dylan Baker, usually a careful, nuanced actor, who is miscast here as the cranky philatelic expert, a man in permanent fuss mode. His complaining quickly get tiresome.
Special mention, though, should be made of designer John Lee Beatty's highly mobile settings, which morph noiselessly from the dead mother's grim apartment to the dismal stamp shop.
For the most part, "Mauritius" is a play about possession and the lengths people are willing to go to get what they want. It's too bad that that single-mindedness, that clear focus doesn't extend to the play itself.
