Theatre in Review: You Will Get Sick (Roundabout Theatre Company/Laura Pels Theatre)

	Linda Lavin. Photo: Joan Marcus

If you attend You Will Get Sick, you'll see Linda Lavin auditioning to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz in full costume. So there's that.

Lavin is one of the chief supports propping up Noah Diaz's wacky, winsome, and sometimes too -cute-by-half examination of the fate that lies in store for us all. It's a mildly retrograde exercise in 1960s absurdism, skittering wildly between farce and tragedy, that sometimes hits the mark, when it isn't winking, broadly, at his own darn cleverness. Dressed up by Sam Pinkleton's highly imaginative production, it is never boring. But it walks the finest of lines and sometimes it trips.

"Is this a sex thing? I don't wanna listen to you jerk off." So snarls Lavin in that cranky, nasal, aggrieved voice that is the soul of New York, and one can only sigh in delight; how one has missed those rolling eyes, those lips curled in skepticism, the manner that seems to say, "Sure. Whatever." Lavin's character, known as #2 -- everyone has a number rather than a name, never a good sign -- is a kind of professional dilletante, flitting from one community college classroom to another. Always in need of cash, she spots a flyer promising that if she dials a certain phone number and merely listens, she can pick up a cool forty bucks. What can she lose?

On the other end of the line is Daniel K. Isaac, and the conversation immediately bogs down into a haggle over Lavin's fee. (He only has a twenty on hand, and they can't agree on the delivery method.) Meanwhile, the revelation of the reason for the call keeps getting delayed. It's a classic telephone sketch, an amusing study of passive-aggression, and it kicks off the action on a promising and faintly mysterious note.

We don't immediately find out what Isaac wants to communicate, but we learn soon enough. He is beset by illness, losing the feeling in his hands and falling frequently; his smile is becoming increasingly frozen. According to his doctor, the prognosis is dire. Anyone would have trouble accepting such grim news, so, before he tells his loved ones, he feels the need to rehearse, which is where Lavin comes in. Before long, they have fallen into a kind of impromptu relationship, among other things shopping for a wheelchair. But her services are on a strictly cash basis; sitting in the park with him, for example, she charges five dollars for a cool compress on his forehead. A drink from a water bottle will set him back ten.

This cranky, transactional, yet not entirely unsympathetic, alliance unfolds inside an alternative filled with bizarre dangers. For example, there are many reports of infirm people being scooped up and carried away by large, rapacious birds. Early on, we see a street huckster selling "bird insurance," apparently a common commodity. Also, much of the action is informed by, of all things, The Wizard of Oz. Lavin tells Isaac that she wants to play Dorothy onstage. ("Did this Dorothy see the trials of war and age sixty years?" he wonders, earning a look that might kill him off.) Then again, Isaac keeps coughing up bits of straw when not pulling them out of his shoulder. Combined with the onset of paralysis, he is turning into a simulacrum of Oz's Scarecrow. (Although no one mentions Kansas, Isaac says that he hails from "the very middle of the country" and you know what that means.)

Whatever is happening to him, Isaac seems oddly alone. His sister comes and goes, but he asks little of her. His boyfriend has gone back to their hometown, to which he has not returned in years. And he is haunted the memory of caring for a brother who died after a long, lingering illness. Then again, who is the voice on the sound system, delivering stage directions in the second person?

You Will Get Sick is a fable about life's fragility, whether caused by the stroke of disaster than upends everything in seconds or the long, slow decline that saps one's will to live. It has moments of power as Isaac confronts the long, loss-filled road ahead of him. But the playwright is overfond of his many devices, to say nothing of his penchant for silly gags, such as the fast-food restaurant that serves "Big Bang Bronco Burgers" and "Grilled Chicken Buck Buck Bites." Much of the time, he seems to be in search of a via media between laughs and heartbreak, sugarcoating his message with silliness and taking a whimsical -- but not too avant-garde -- approach.

Under the circumstances, Lavin can't help but hijack a play that, by all rights, should be focused on Isaac. Whether impersonating a lion in a riotously kooky acting class, wondering out loud about the advisability of the word "midgets," or launching into a rendition of "Over the Rainbow" that reliably jumps the rails, her comic technique is as faultless as ever. Even labored bits of business acquire a new crackle with her: Making a class presentation, she announces. "We, uh, we titled our project Gentrification and How It's Affected the Neighborhoods Between Seventy-First and Forty-Third, Just Between the Park with The Pack of Wild Dogs and That Bodega with All the Cats in It," her enthusiasm for the project plunging with each excess syllable. And even though her Dorothy audition comes at a point when the play has worn out its welcome, she nevertheless makes it the evening's main event.

Isaac holds his own next to Lavin, but his role is largely passive, a vessel of suffering who weakens by degrees. The cast includes Marinda Anderson, sympathetic as Isaac's sister; a clueless co-worker; and a theory-ridded acting teacher; Nate Miller as a waiter prone to tears and a home caregiver with breaking-and-entering skills; and Dario Ladani Sanchez as the omniscient voice on the sound system, who makes a showstopping -- and confusing -- eleventh hour appearance.

Pinkleton's staging has a brisk confidence that bucks up the script, handling hairpin emotional turns and bizarre special effects with equal elan. The set, by the collective known as dots, is a grim, black-on-black abstraction until it executes a stunning transformation near the end; Cha See's lighting is remarkably fluid in handling the script's many moods. Given the play's unclear time frame, listed as "a time before cellphones," the costumes by Michael Krass and Alicia Austin feel a tad nondescript, but that Dorothy dress for Lavin is a winner. Lee Kinney and Daniel Kluger provided original music, with Kinney in charge of sound design and Kluger handling sound effects; everything is capably done. Skylar Fox conjures some stunning illusions, including one in which Isaac's body sees to break apart.

The central situation of You Will Get Sick is sufficiently vague that you can read just about anything into it -- fear of aging, the AIDS epidemic (Isaac's character is gay), and, of course, COVID. That's fine, but the piece is too fuzzy to make a strong impact and too determined to ingratiate while delivering the baleful news that, sooner or later, we're all on the way out. As a writer, Diaz has something, even if it isn't fully worked out here. And you should never miss Lavin, one of the most distinctive comic actresses we have. If you don't expect more, you'll be fine. --David Barbour