The Crumple Zone

It is not always easy to find a good adult alternative to pantomime in the Christmas season, so there was quite a bit of expectation and hope for The Crumple Zone that had been an Off-Broadway hit in 2000/2001.

However, this play being fourteen years old shows its age in its stance and it’s writing. It professes to show the funny and heart-felt attempts of Terry (James Grimm) an out of work actor trying to be the go-between in the love triangle of his fellow flat mates Buck (James Mackay) and Sam (Sinead Donnelly) over Alex (Jonny Davidson) the man they both profess to love. Throw in a casual pick-up Roger (Nicholas Gauci) who is strangely persistent in his endeavours to bed Terry, and it would seem an ideal scenario for comedy and showing what friendship truly means. But has limited success doing either.

Set in a run-down apartment on Staten Island this production begins at such a frenetic pace with lines and humour fired like a machine-gun, that the audience get little chance to really engage with the camp and often bitchy conversations. This turns the characters into such caricatures of themselves that it is difficult to feel empathy for any of them, especially when the more poignant moments happen. And these appear too little and too late in the play.

It is also very predictable in its plot and ending that the audiences will experience little surprise along the way. It is also difficult to see why the one moment of full male nudity was necessary and felt gratuitous because of that.

There are moments of humour and pathos, but these are moments lost in the cacophony of speed of movement and delivery. It’s a real shame, because, in this production both the actors and the audiences feel short-changed. Maybe in different hands it could have been the play it professes to be.