One-person pieces are often the hardest type of theater to bring off. Live stage work depends on conflict, and no matter how talented a performer is, convincingly creating character and/or principle clashes while flying solo is a prodigious task few can handle with dexterity. There’s also the heightened economic stakes of theater these days. Audiences pay into the triple digits, so if they’re greeted with a bare stage and only one name in the cast list, expectations are going to be that much higher. The current double bill Sea Wall/A Life now at the Hudson Theater in a limited Broadway run after a hit Off-Broadway engagement at the Public last season, does offer two single acts with top-shelf talent and relatable, heart-wrenching content.
Both pieces by separate authors deal with shattering turning points and afford magnificent vehicles for two daring stars. Sea Wall by Simon Stephens (Tony winner for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) is heartbreaking, but the lesser of the two pieces. Tom Sturridge is Alex, an adorably rumpled chap relating his idyllic experiences of love, his gruff but lovable father-in-law, and becoming a father to the most precious daughter in the world. (We get to know more about the wife’s father than the wife herself.) The little family vacations in the dad-in-law’s perfect seaside home in the South of France.
Of course with all this sweetness and joy, something tragic has to go wrong. Sturridge admirably conveys Alex’s anguish, humor, and urgent questing to find meaning in his personal tragedy. At times, the actor is so convincingly in the moment, little details such as knocking over a water bottle or not completing a sentence have shattering impact. But the tale feels incomplete and underdeveloped.
A Life by Nick Payne is much more complex, and Jake Gyllenhaal delivers a brilliantly shaded performance as Abe, a man coping with the twin poles of existence—birth and death. Payne skillfully juxtaposes twin narratives of the terminal diagnosis of Abe’s father and the hilarious chaos resulting from the upcoming birth of his child. The piece opens with Abe fumbling in the dark for the light switch and apologizing to the audience for the inconvenience. Later, he frantically runs through the theater, using his I-phone for a flashlight, on an errand for his pregnant wife. Both sequences are funny, touching, frenzied, and messy—just like real life. Then they are quickly followed by moments of sorrow as Abe confronts the pain of losing his dad. One minute he is desperately calming his wife through labor pains and the next dealing with funeral arrangements. Payne feelingly and seamlessly chronicles these intertwined life voyages and Gyllenhaal intensely conveys their intense dichotomy.
Carrie Cracknell directs both plays with a balanced hand, eliciting the maximum of pathos and guffaws. Guy Hoare’s lighting and Daniel Kluger’s sound design create a palpable world on Laura Jellinek’s bare set.
