Four

The generally high-level Manhattan Theater Club has a show called Four, by the very inept (for much of the show, we're listening to one half of a telephone conversation) Christopher Shinn, whose forebear was undoubtedly the bumbling Mayor Shinn in Music Man. Much of the dialogue rings false in this story of two interactions: a teenage gay white boy and a fifty-or-so-year-old black man who likes boys, and the man's lovely, bright daughter and her illiterate, basketball-playing young lover.

The styles of acting in the production are at odds with each other. Pascale Armand as the girl is real and believable, Armando Riesco as her boyfriend defines his character by grabbing his crotch and imitating a Puerto Rican East Bronx accent. Keith Nobbs, as the teenage boy, is naturalistic and introverted, and Isiah Whitlock, Jr. doesn't act; he declaims loudly and punctuates every sentence with severely irritating phony laughter. In one spot, he moves himself to tears. The result is a tedious hour and a half, poorly directed by Jeff Cohen, with a worthy set by Lauren Helpern.