Theatre in Review: Relatively Speaking (Brooks Atkinson Theatre) On Broadway today, you can see any number of vintage shows, such as Anything Goes, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Follies, or Godspell -- but if you want a truly retro experience, there's Relatively Speaking, a throwback to all the flop comedies that populated the Times Square area in the '60s, from Everybody Loves Opal to A Teaspoon Every Four Hours. A trio of one-acts, its real spiritual ancestor, I suppose, is Morning, Noon, and Night, by Israel Horovitz, Terrence McNally, and Leonard Melfi, which lasted all of 52 performances in 1968-69. Of course, I don't know that Relatively Speaking is a flop -- according to rumor, it has a pretty good advance -- but when an entire act plays to nothing but scattered titters, trouble is afoot. The first half of the evening, which examines the family ties that bind -- and gag ---is the deadlier of the two. The opener, "Talking Cure," by Ethan Coen, is simply inexplicable, a pair of scenes stuck together in the hope that they will make a play. Set in a mental hospital (which, as designed by Santo Loquasto, looks more like a prison), the first half consists of verbal fencing between a doctor (Jason Kravitz) and a patient (Danny Hoch). The latter did something untoward in a post office; exactly what is never revealed. (We're apparently supposed to find it hilarious that he assaulted a nurse and called her "a dyke from hell.") What follows is a series of analysis-related gags so exhausted they need a couch of their own: "If people don't have problems, you don't eat," grumbles the patient, before suggesting that maybe he is really the doctor. There's one mildly amusing joke ("What did the waiter say to the table of Jewish mothers?" "What?" "'Is anything all right?'"), but it's surely one you've heard before. Halfway through, there's a flashback to the patient's parents in the 1950s; we see them engage in nagging, passive-aggressive battle; the climax comes when the wife's water breaks. The scene trades in the worst stereotypes about whiny Jewish wives and their henpecked husbands; if it had been written by, say, A. R. Gurney, the Anti-Defamation League would be up in arms. Next comes "George is Dead," by Elaine May. The lights come up on Carla (Lisa Emery) in her shabby apartment, trying to reach her husband on the phone. There's a knock at the door and in comes the stupendously entitled Doreen (Marlo Thomas), announcing that her husband, George, has died in a skiing accident. Doreen's nanny was Carla's mother; Carla is plenty bitter about her childhood, since her mother devoted all her time and energy to Doreen. Still, Carla tries to offer comfort to the newly widowed Doreen, who doesn't want to deal with the funeral arrangements, or anything else. Instead, she wants to be given a snack and put to bed. As Doreen herself comments, "What will I do? I don't have the depth to feel this bad." George is Dead is the strangest of the evening' offerings. As Doreen, Thomas is an amusing caricature right out of an old Mike Nichols-Elaine May sketch, but she's strangely adrift in a downbeat drama about Carla's unraveling marriage and her codependent family relationships. (The plot doesn't really make sense; the script makes a point of noting that Doreen is significantly older than Carla -- so how could Carla lose her mother to Doreen, who would have been grown up when Carla was a child?) The longest of the three plays, it wanders incessantly in search of a point. Adding to the tonal confusion is the appearance of Grant Shaud as Carla's husband, a high school teacher who simmers with class resentment; he announces that he has just quit Amnesty International because "America has now become a reality show and no one will change the channel." (Now there's an insight.) As May casts about for some kind of ending, the action shifts to Frank Campbell's Funeral Home, where Doreen is made to face her late husband's body. By that time, the few laughs generated have dried up altogether. (I do treasure the memory of Emery, furiously scraping the salt off of a cracker, because that's how Doreen likes them.) Thomas, of course, can take care of herself, even when the play is floundering badly, but, overall, the director, John Turturro, seems especially ill at ease here. For a total change of pace, there's Woody Allen's Honeymoon Motel. The setting is a themed motel on Long Island. Steve Guttenberg shows up in a tux with Ari Graynor in a wedding gown. Martinis are produced, as is a négligée. Things aren't what they seem, however -- the big twist produces a considerable shock laugh, so I can't reveal it -- but soon the room is loaded with relatives and exes, all of them weighing in on the couple's plans. This isn't the Woody Allen of sophisticated creampuffs like Midnight in Paris; this is the Woody Allen who once ground out gags for the likes of Sid Caesar -- and most of the jokes would have seemed a lot fresher 50 years ago. ("Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, says someone. "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but it's the times it's not that you have to fake a headache," replies another.) Because the gags are delivered by a company of expert kvetchers (Shaud, Caroline Aaron, Julie Kavner, Mark Linn-Baker, and Richard Libertini, among others), Honeymoon Motel gets its share of laughs, but it's tacky, derivative stuff, a coarse procession of one-liners smuggled out of the Borscht Belt. It feels like outtakes from a television special circa 1970 -- and watching Allen try to wring humor out of subjects like suicide and child molestation isn't a pretty sight. (The central plot device, alluded to above, is pretty shocking, given Allen's own scandalous past; he trots out his familiar argument, that the heart has its own reasons, but it rings hollow here.) If Turturro can't do anything with the first two pieces, he has at least given Honeymoon Motel a slam-bang pace, although the lack of variety in pacing and tone becomes wearing. The physical production is competent, if hardly inspired. Loquasto's sets are a mix of good and not-so-good. The best is Carla's apartment, rendered with plenty of realistic detail. The weakest is the motel, which is ugly without being amusing; I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some of the detail was sacrificed for budgetary reasons. Each piece is given its own distinct mood by Kenneth Posner's lighting. Donna Zakowska's costumes include a purposely unflattering frilly pink frock for Doreen, and some ghastly wedding reception gear for the cast of Honeymoon Motel. Carl Casella's sound design includes music selections ranging from rock music to Fred Astaire singing "I'm Old-Fashioned," and bits of old '60s-era sitcoms when Doreen is watching television. (The impulse to quote That Girl is resisted.) One nifty touch is Doreen's cell phone ringtone, taken from Ravel's Bolero. But there's no getting around the fact that Relatively Speaking is like a well-thumbed joke book, lacking any spark of inspiration. Watching the plays as I did with a largely older audience, it would be easy to dismiss them as good fun for fans for Allen and May -- there's no excuse for Coen's contribution - if they didn't garner such a mild response. As Libertini notes in Honeymoon Motel, "I admit Freud was a genius. Who else could make an hour into 50 minutes?" Would that time have passed so quickly at the Brooks Atkinson.--David Barbour 
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