Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

“Language is the opposite of communication,” says Rusty (Mark Boyett) to his friend and neighbor Max (Brian Dykstra, who is also the playwright) and never has a statement been so furiously and infuriatingly mined than in the extremely clever and quite hilarious “A Play on Words” at 59E59th Theaters. Ostensibly, it is a play about the possibilities and limitations of language, but there are digressions galore that keep the audience as well as the actors on their toes. Kelly Syring’s smart set denotes a typical suburb, complete with vinyl siding, a bit of turf and a garden hose. The rest looks a bit like a child’s playground, with a half-buried tire sunk in the ground from which a rope hangs, miniature basketball net and a red camp chair set on a puzzle of a floor. This is perfect, as the two friends constantly engage in one-upmanship, and poor Rusty can’t say as much as “Hey” to his friend without getting into a verbal punching match. Brian Dykstra’s Max is a sort of manic, middle-aged, over-grown boy dressed like Charlie Brown who is intent on making Mark Boyett’s Rusty explain what he means and defend his choice of words. Boyett, chanelling a smarter, more grown-up Rick Moranis, gives as good as he gets, and he demonstrates some virtuosity along the way (mimicking two children fighting in a sandbox is one such example). Dykstra and Boyett are both superb: an extremely funny double act, with neither ever acquiescing to the other (and if one does, it is only temporary.)

The sheer verbal dexterity demonstrated by both actors is astonishing, and they are helped no end by the pacing director Margaret Perry has set. Digressions include but are not limited to hanging a moose head in a stranger’s house using the stranger’s own tools; to Rusty’s love life, as he apparently dumped Max’s sister; to guys who think about nothing at all; to slogans that will incite a riot on both the Democrat and the Republican sides (I can’t be that much of a spoiler to tell what they come up with, but these slogans alone are worth the price of admission.) And if one of the friends should be losing, then there is nothing wrong with getting personal. Max says, “Hell, let’s be honest, your last five girlfriends probably thought about nothing every time they broke down and let you jump them, so they wouldn’t have to think about what a shitty lay they were getting from a porn addict like you.” As Rusty protests, Max says, “So you don’t have a problem with porn“” And Rusty replies, “…Define problem.” The fact that in “A Play on Words,” everything and nothing can be defined is a definite plus point from a theatrical point of view.