Reviews

Late Fragment

Nick Sandow and Jenna Stern in Late Fragment
(Photo © George McLaughlin)
Nick Sandow and Jenna Stern in Late Fragment
(Photo © George McLaughlin)

A fairly recent event has been added to the age-old debate over whether there are some subjects about which you simply can’t be funny. The Holocaust is the leading example, and has been for 50 years; for the past four year or so, the attack on the World Trade Center has also been very high on the list. But perspective changes with the passage of time, and Francine Volpe’s Late Fragment suggests that a few 9/11 jokes can finally be told without offending still-fragile sensibilities.

Audiences will have to decide for themselves whether that world-shaking event is now, or can ever be, fair game for any sort of humor. Just to get things straight, however, Volpe certainly isn’t suggesting that the Ground Zero catastrophe is fodder for a thigh-slapping laugh-fest. Far from it. What she’s written is a melancholy comedy that veers into intense drama by the end of its rather brief two acts. Her tactic is to introduce Matthew Ford (Nick Sandow), a protagonist with a quiet sense of humor — although it’s being severely tested — who’s also unintentionally amusing from time to time. Matthew is what Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm version of himself might be if he’d undergone a genuine calamity not of his own making.

When Matthew returns home sometime during the dreadful afternoon of 9/11, he’s covered in white dust. As survivors trudging uptown did that day, he looks spectral. While his wife Marta (Jenna Stern) is stunned at what she sees, her initial worry is over the couple’s financial situation. It’s apparently much in doubt already, and bankruptcy is a possibility. Marta isn’t yet gravely concerned about the state of their marriage but becomes more so over the next few months, as a CNBC anchorman named Brian Hennessy (Dean Harrison) and his cameraman (Ken Forman) make repeated visits to get Matt’s story and the Fords’ lawyer, Dorian (Michael Mosley), offers advice and solace — but only to her.

As the weeks and months go by, Matt continues holding his neck and complaining about not being able to turn his head to the right. Carping about a groin injury as well, he insists that there’s something wrong with him, although repeated MRI exams have indicated that he’s healthy. Increasingly desperate, he alienates Marta, Dorian, and even the CNBC hangers-on. A book lover who apparently has an impressive collection of first editions, Matt at one point quotes Raymond Carver’s poem “Late Fragment” to help him come to some understanding of himself.

Late Fragment is successful enough that I wish it were more successful. At present, it needs both more and less. The play begs for more attention to logic — why does it occur to no one that Matt may be suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome? — and would benefit from additional information about the Ford marriage. What it could stand less of is Volpe’s playing around with Matt’s state of being (possible spoiler just ahead): Throughout, she hints at the possibility that Matt may not have gotten through the 9/11 ordeal alive and that what we are seeing is his ghost. There’s something to be said for ambiguity in a play but not much to be said for outright coyness on the part of the author, which is what we have here.

There is much to be said for the 66-seat Studio Dante, where Late Fragment is playing. The artistic directors of this boutique theater are Michael and Victoria Imperioli. For this production, he’s doubling (with Zetna Fuentes) as the play’s director, while she is the costume and production designer — and it’s quite a design she’s come up with. Behind the gliding sofa and book shelves that represent the Ford apartment, Mrs. Imperioli has placed a panoramic grey backdrop showing an under-siege Lower Manhattan street. The buildings’ windows appear to be made of reflective foil, which lends a garish quality to the scene. The far corners of the stage are filled with piles of dust-laden bricks. Battered ducts and loose wires spill from the ceiling as a reminder of the September 11 destruction and, also, a tip-off to the Fords’ marital condition.

Michael Imperioli’s contributions aren’t as visible, but they’re significant. In addition to being a first-rate actor (he won an Emmy for his role of Christopher on The Sopranos), he’s clearly an able director of other actors. Sandow’s lumbering, baffled Matt is like a drugged bear in the wrong circus ring, while Stern’s disillusioned, angry Marta is like a bear trainer with her hands full. Mosley’s Dorian, in his blue suit and red tie, is the right kind of lubricious operator.

Surely, Mr. Imperioli could be doing things with his television earnings other than channeling some of them into a small theater company. That he’s interested in something already as provocative as Late Fragment is a boon to all of us.