Editorial Decisions

by David Anthony Fox

How nice to welcome spring renewal in the heart of winter! Last season, the Brick Playhouse lost the lease on their longtime space on South Street. I confess at the time I worried they wouldn’t be back -- it’s hard enough to maintain a small company when there’s a home theater! And to lose Brick would have been especially unfortunate, because the company’s mission -- supporting new work by young playwrights -- is so worthy. Brick even gives a yearly prize (the Roger Cornish Memorial Award) that includes production of the selected piece.

"Sometimes -- there's God -- so quickly!" as Tennessee Williams wrote. In this case, a handful of local saints helped Brick secure a new (and even better) space: 2nd Stage at the Adrienne. Good news indeed.

More good news: The new Cornish Award winner currently on display, Nicholas Wardigo's Editorial Decisions, is smart, snappy, well-performed and mostly quite enjoyable.

As the title implies, Decisions is set in the glamorous, entertainingly cutthroat world of publishing. Two female editors are working desperately to secure important writer clients. Elizabeth is a successful, sassy, experienced know-it-all who's not above using her considerable sexuality to go after new prey. Ariel, her young assistant, is (as yet) more dewy and idealistic, but equally fetching and ultimately, just as ambitious.

The prize both seek is Maxwell Kingfisher, a current icon, Salinger-like in his invisibility (nobody really knows what he looks like). When he turns up at one of Elizabeth's cocktail parties, fasten your seat belts: It's going to be a bumpy night.

Decisions follows in the path of classic Hollywood screwball comedies, and throughout it resonates with time-honored traditions. Wardigo provides some good one-liners (Elizabeth, praising Ariel's attention to punctuation, calls her "the illegitimate child of Strunk and White!"). The Elizabeth/Ariel rivalry is rather All About Eve-ish, and Kingfisher's first appearance -- he's found underneath a table, tuxedo-clad, sipping sake from a thermos -- might be something Howard Hawks devised for Cary Grant.

The new play does have its flaws. The material about the publishing world feels fresher than the wild-goose-chase stuff, though the latter overtakes the former. And crucially missing is more depth in each character, something that makes us root for an ultimate resolution and coupling. (Those great '30s comedies should be a model here, too!)

Still, James Haskins has directed stylishly, and the three actors -- Kim McCaul-Armer (Elizabeth), Erin Reilly (Ariel) and especially Greg Wood (Kingfisher) -- do their work with energy and comic brio. While an ideal Decisions would have sumptuous designs evoking Art Deco hotel suites and the like, Marka Suber's colorful building-block scenery has its own visual wit and charm.

Editorial Decisions

Through Feb. 1, Brick Playhouse at 2nd Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-592-1183

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