Where does sex intersect with death? Wherever the meeting point is, you’ll probably find Larry David there, smiling.
In Fish in the Dark, the comedian’s hugely anticipated Broadway debut which opened on Thursday at the Cort Theatre after a record-breaking pre-sale, David plays what we can assume is another version of his real self. To that end, our David stand-in, a character named Norman Drexel, poses such questions as: should I masturbate immediately after finding out that my father might be dying? Is it acceptable to squeeze a woman’s breasts if you only have hours left to live?
The Anna D Shapiro-directed play, written by David, looks in on a family grappling with a tragedy and what comes after, something he calls “death etiquette”. It’s a topic that puts David in his element. Dealing with parents, sex, death and the marital strife that comes with it: it’s all there, and at times it’s hilarious. Clad in the same get-up as always – corduroy pants, a blue T-shirt, sneakers and a cotton blazer – he has the ability to slay the crowd with a gesture: standing on stage, arms out to both sides in mock outrage, a colossal grin on his face.
The play opens, by way of some truly stellar curtain work by designer Todd Rosenthal, with a phone call telling Norman that his father is dying. (The curtain itself is a massive California death certificate which gets filled out between scenes via a kind of typewriter light show.) Norman, his wife Brenda (Rita Wilson) – who has a never-quite-explained condition called hyperthymesia, which allows her to remember every day of her life in great detail – and the rest of the family meander to the hospital. They get there in time for his father to impart to Norman and his brother Arthur (Ben Shenkman) his dying wish: their mother must move in with one of them. Then he’s gone.
The ensuing tussle over which son he meant, over the course of the next two hours, has moments of helpless, uproarious humour. But as smart as it is, and with the help of outstanding supporting performances by Rosie Perez and Jayne Houdyshell (who, at seven years Larry David’s junior, somehow plays his mother), fans of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm may still come away disappointed.
While the set pieces are concocted with genius, and some, like a dilemma about whether or not to tip a doctor, turn toe-curling into an art form, they don’t come sublimely full circle in the way that David’s plots are known and praised for. The show is very linear, and some of the funniest and cleverest scenes are cut off before they can really blossom. By the admittedly exceptional comic standards David has laid down, this ranks alongside an average episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
David is at his best during a scene at his father’s funeral where we see a thought cross his mind: should I confront a 14-year-old girl and accuse her of plagiarising her eulogy? Yes, he decides. This is a worthwhile venture. There is also an incredible – and perhaps unprecedented on Broadway – discussion about whether the word “cunt” is equivalent to “dickhead”. The entire theatre, patrons ranging in age from about 16 to 86, rocks with laughter.
Though David has claimed in interviews that he did not initially want to play the lead, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. His trademark outrage, the many laughs earned on body language alone, never mind the delivery of his trademark line “pretty, pretty good” – they could be done by no one else.
However, a bit about Dominique Strauss-Kahn assaulting a hotel maid includes an off-key line about rape, and a bad joke about a “FaceTime intervention” feels fusty. Maybe a running gag about one of the characters having a cockney accent in the style of Eliza Doolittle is a tip of the hat to Broadway and My Fair Lady, but it still seems pointless.
Both the hype around this show and the scarcity of David’s work means that audiences are unlikely to be deterred – if they can afford it. Tickets for this Saturday’s show are selling for over $1,600 on the second-tier market. The play has cleaned up $14.5m in pre-sale seats. Even Paul McCartney has to squeeze into the middle aisle all the way back in the ninth row on press night.
Yet while Fish in the Dark has moments that approach the peaks of David’s best work, it’s not quite in the sell-your-kidney category. As McCartney told the Guardian afterwards, almost with a shrug: “It was good … There were some hilarious parts.”
