Jeff Baron's New York two-hander about a young American Express executive who, for the crime of reckless driving, is given community service visiting the elderly Jewish man he almost knocked over, is a variation on the old odd-couple routine. The two appear to have nothing in common, but turn out to be brothers under the skin linked by religion, sexuality and the ties of family.
Warren Mitchell as the bigoted 86-year-old Mr Green, and Reece Dinsdale as Ross Gardiner, a man whose smooth exterior belies a more anxious psyche and a troubled family background, play the sharp New York wit with relish. But they are limited by characters who, despite the play's six-month time span, never develop beyond stereotypes.
Green ignores anything he doesn't like and that doesn't fit in with his orthodoxy. That includes his family. So as the men's prickly relationship begins to develop into an uneasy friendship and Gardiner spills the beans about his sexual orientation and his difficult relationship with his father, it looks as if Green will turn his back on the young man. But Baron's play is set in fairytale-land: the cantankerous Green is soon transformed into a charming substitute father and Gardiner into a wise substitute son, as the oppressions of Jews and gays are neatly tied together.
If you can believe all this, and the other predictable twists in the plot, then you probably also believe that pigs can fly. But Baron delivers it in that distinctively American mixture of earnestness and wisecrack, so you find yourself being unexpectedly charmed and moved by this hokum.
Less appealing is the construction of the play, which is as old-fashioned as its sentiments and consists of a number of brief scenes to mark passing weeks. It gives the short evening a stop/start jerkiness and never allows the actors to develop a rhythm or the action any momentum. With its small cast, star names and its ability to tug at the heart strings, I wouldn't be surprised if this production eventually popped up in the West End, where this kind of drama, geriatric in more ways than one, still gets an audience.
Until March 25. Box office: 0113-213 7700.
***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible
