Yank!, Clybourne Park, and Mr. & Mrs. Fitch Go For Gimmicks

A A A Comments By Michael Feingold Tuesday, Mar 2 2010

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Carol Rosegg

GI Joe GI Joe: Yank!

Details

Yank!
By David and Joseph Zellnik
York Theatre
619 Lexington Avenue, 212-935-5820

Clybourne Park
By Bruce Norris
Playwrights Horizons
416 West 42nd Street, 212-239-6200

Mr. & Mrs. Fitch
By Douglas Carter Beane
Second Stage
305 West 43rd Street, 212-246-4422

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In Douglas Carter Beane's Mr. & Mrs. Fitch (Second Stage), the irrelevancy gap is even wider. Beane's Fitches, wholly unlike the Cole Porter–invented couple who inspired them, are a duo of married gossip columnists who talk, to our sorrow and constant earache, just the way newspaper gossip columnists used to write, decades back, with an old-style tough-guy editor who bullies them to pep up their column. Their pep-generator: Invent an imaginary celebrity whom everyone adores. Their inevitable comeuppance: Their hoax celeb is co-opted by the right-wing slime whose presence they've spent years chronicling. Their lame revenge: Give up gossip and unmask those fascist phonies in your great American novel. John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle exert a lot of energy trying to make Beane's nonsense fly, but it's hard to care.

mfeingold@villagevoice.com

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