Theatre in Review: Cradle and All (Manhattan Theatre Club/New York City Center Stage I) Kids -- can't live with them, can't live without them. That's the message of Cradle and All, which examines the contrasting discontents of childlessness and parenthood, with mixed success. The playwright, Daniel Goldfarb, taking a flyer on a type of format often utilized by Alan Ayckbourn and Neil Simon, has assembled a diptych of comic dramas set in adjoining Brooklyn Heights apartments. They succeed best when he is exercising his talent for dialogue that reveals the masterful undermining skills practiced by couples in long-term relationships. The opener, the far weaker "Infantry," begins with a woman named Claire trying to work up a romantic atmosphere in advance of the arrival of Luke, her long-term partner. Cocktails are mixed, new-age piano music is playing, and rose petals have been scattered everywhere. Claire has something more than a hot date in mind, however; she's on the very edge of 40, and, she says, fears "the clock will strike midnight and I'll become a cougar -- just like that." The somewhat younger Luke is not persuaded by her fears; he's even less sympathetic when she proposes that they have a child. In fact, it's not too much to say that, in the course of a half hour, their relationship more or less unravels. It doesn't unravel very interestingly, however, because Goldfarb has barely put any flesh on the bones of his characters. The action mostly consists of Claire's pitch for pregnancy, followed by dialogue that restates the situation without adding much of anything. ("I changed." "Well, I didn't.") The best thing to be said about "Infantry" is that it is over in only 45 minutes. Things pick up noticeably in the second act, "The Extinction Method," which introduces us to the beleaguered Annie and Nate. They've been parents for more than a year, but Olivia, their daughter, resolutely refuses to sleep alone all night. Their current counselor -- she's more like a guru -- tells them to put the baby down for the evening and let her cry all night if need be. This results is the pathetic spectacle of Annie and Nate trying to pretend they're having a quiet night while Olivia's howls escalate in the background. The script is full of dryly amusing insights into what stress has done to this marriage. Fending off a husbandly pass, Annie says, "There's a time and place for that." Nate wonders helpfully, "Our home, at night?" Pressing his case, he adds, "I am still really attracted to you. That's awesome. You like it." "Conceptually, I do," concedes Annie, doubtfully. Later, when the conversation turns more hostile, Nate wickedly observes, "That Facebook application was totally right about you -- Slytherin," thus ridiculing silly online identity games and condemning the woman he loves to the worst school at Hogwarts in a single stroke. Neither Maria Dizzia nor Greg Keller, who play both couples, can do much with their first-act characters, but in Act II they serve up each conversational volley with the skill of tennis pros. Dizzia really gets at the heart of Kate, the kind of woman who tells her mother on the phone that she's planning to watch a documentary on holocaust survivors and global warming, then unrepentantly tunes in to America's Next Top Model. Keller is equally convincing as the kind of overly evolved male who, in moments of staggering frustration, makes chocolate chip cookies. Also, while the action in "Infantry" seems drearily predictable, "The Extinction Method" is paced by the kind of arguments that could either peter out or wander past the point of no return, damaging Nate and Annie's marriage beyond repair. The difference in quality between the two plays is so pronounced that one has to wonder if Goldfarb, having written a bang-up one-act, tried to extend it into a full evening. There are bits of synchronicity between the plays -- one member of each couple is a formerly successful actor with a stalled career, and there are occasional lines of dialogue that repeat, word for word. Whether this is a bit of self-indulgence on the author's part or an attempt at creating a fully unified evening is impossible to say. In any case, case Sam Buntrock's direction is only as good as the material, feeling forced in Act I and deft in Act II. Also, Neil Patel's design features two identical, yet very different, apartments. Each features the same floor plan, but they are mirror images of each other, and, of course, they are dressed very, very differently. Everything else about the design -- Ken Billington's lighting, Jill BC DuBoff's sound, and Mattie Ullrich's costumes -- are up to Manhattan Theatre Club's usual high standard. Even at its weakest, when it feels like the result of a work made for hire, Cradle and All remains the work of first-rate pros. It's just that inspiration doesn't arrive until after intermission.--David Barbour 
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