Another way of expressing the familiar “catch as catch can” phrase is: doing as much as you’re able to do in a situation where accomplishing everything you’d like to accomplish looms as difficult. That may not be why Mia Chung calls her play Catch as Catch Can, but maybe it is.
Chung has created an inordinately clever work, yes; to the extent that the play itself might be used to illlustrate one of those times when a playwright is too-clever-by-half.
Chung’s Catch as Catch Can – first presented in 2018 at Page 73 – is so devilishly clever that it’s immediately clear why the Playwrights Horizons influencers decided to bring it back. Works of this profound cleverness aren’t in abundant supply. Therefore, a reviewer offers contained congrats for the fresh-as-new-paint PH production, directed by Daniel Aukin and featuring Cindy Cheung, Jon Norman Schneider, and Rob Yang.
Here’s what transpires during the play’s intermissionless 110 breakneck minutes. Six members of two working-class New England families mix and mingle. Four belong to the Italian Lavecchia unit – Lon and Daniels Lavecchia (Cheung doubling) along with Roberta and Robbie Lavecchia (Schneider doubling). Two members belong to the Irish Phelan unit – Theresa and Tim (Yang doubling).
Yes, doubling abounds. So much of it that sometimes the actors switch personas from line to line and back again. A Chung footnote in the script gives a better idea of the nature of these Catch as Catch Can things:
“In this scene the dialogue and activity often overlap as characteristic of the multi-tasking energy of preparing for a party. The room expands and contracts with general and ‘private’ scraps of conversation in a non-secular rhythm. Also, the scene’s activity gradually accelerates, becomes more abstract and fluid, particularly with regard to the doubling.”
In other words, readers and potential Chung ticket buyers, be prepared for your catching as catch can a work that might have just as accurately been dubbed Biting Off More Than You Can Chew.
In the plus column is the dialogue – the often-overlapping dialogue. Chung has a marvelous ear for the way people actually talk. Just as Paddy Chayefsky admirers used to carry on about his listening skills, Chung gives evidence that she’s acquired the gift in large measure.
She hears how a person, while chatting about one thing, will suddenly veer into something else and just as quickly return to what they’ve been emphasizing. Early on, Roberta, in a moment of concern, asks, “Has he called Robbie?” and then interrupts herself to toss in “I’ll make my meatballs.” That’s just one of myriad examples eliciting laughs and/or revealing a character’s harmful inattention.
Make no mistake: the Catch as Catch Can laughs are copious as are the emotionally disturbing moments when the Lavecchia-Phelan families are constantly interacting. That’s all to the good.
Not all to the good are the challenges the audience confronts when attempting to follow more than two of the characters interacting. Even the most adept auditor could be confused at decoding which of the Lavecchias or Phelans is saying what.
The shifting tones may represent a problem Chung creates for herself. When it begins, Roberta and Theresa are gossiping about, of all things, the English royals. The tea-at-the-kitchen-table banter is hilarious, so much so that the mood established for the proceedings in heavily comic.
As the families’ purposes and cross-purposes change, in large part because of the younger generation’s attitudes, Catch as Catch Can transitions into a drama that concludes far more dramatically than comically. What Chung hasn’t achieved is an overarching blend that leaves patrons satisfied rather than mildly perplexed.
It’s a pleasure to report two elements that go a distance to making the audience happy: the acting and the directing. As the three cast members alternate characters – changing their voices if not Enver Chakartash’s costumes – they’re far more than able. They’re remarkable.
Note, too, that Aukin hasn’t made it a point to cast Irish and Italian actors. The opposite: he’s made it a point not to, his decision in line with contemporary theater leanings to stress the universal pertinence of many stage pieces as well as to support diversity.
Director Aukin also works wonders augmenting a script in which Chung keeps stage directions brief. While the Lavecchias and the Phelans ready meals, greet holidays, and go about other daily business, Aukin –with set designer Matt Saunders, lighting designer Marika Kent, and sound designer Bray Poor – assures that the life Chung builds into her play assumes a matching vital stage life.
The unquestionably talented Chung peppers, salts, sugars, and may season Catch as Catch Can with too much to catch, but whatever elements the individual observer catches as those multifarious elements whirligig by brings undisputed rewards.
Catch As Catch Can opened November 9, 2022, at Playwrights Horizons and runs through November 20. Tickets and information: playwrightshorizons.org
