Dead on All Accounts

With the holidays now past, I'm still catching up on some of the stuff I did last month.  And, in this case, apologizing for some of the stuff I did last month.

On December 12, 2012, our calendar hit a significant moment.  12-12-12.  It was enough for major rock musicians to put on a legendary concert at Madison Square Garden with the proceeds being donated to help with the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in New York.  Thousands attended.  I, unfortunately, did not.

Eleven blocks to the north, I was on hand with a couple of hundred schmucks dealing with a completely different kind of disaster.  A play that should never have been produced.  And it made me wonder whether FEMA could be asked to provide cash refunds for those of us idiots who made the lethal mistake of going to see "Dead Accounts" at the Music Box Theater.

You wonder how stuff like this ever gets mounted on a Broadway stage.  What strange and misguided decisions are formed that allow dreck like this Theresa Rebeck play to ever be performed?  I mean, she's a pretty famous playwright.  She's done some credible work.  She created the TV show "Smash," which I like.  She's since been replaced on the TV program writing staff---a horrible decision, in retrospect, since it apparently gave her some free time to write "Dead Accounts."  If only she had taken up macrame as an alternative hobby.  This is a play that doesn't have performances.  It holds viewing and, according to the schedule, the body will be reposing until February 24, at which point even local community theater won't touch this script.  But, since then, they have commuted the sentence to this weekend, so you only have a few more days to avoid this play.

I was drawn to the play mainly because I wanted to get together with a friend for a holiday outing.  A decision as fateful as Ebenezer Scrooge's choice to try and get some shuteye on Christmas Eve.  Admittedly, I was curious enough to see if star Katie Holmes could act on a legitimate stage, proving that, yes, there is life after divorcing a Scientologist.  And, one of the co-stars is Judy Greer, an actress I have liked with red hair that I like even more.  This was enough to propel me into the theater for the evening.  What could happen?  I guess President Kennedy thought the same thing as he got into a limousine at Love Field on November 22, 1963.

Truth be told, there is a plot in "Dead Accounts," but it takes about an hour for it to kick in.  We're in a Cincinnati middle class home.  Katie Holmes lives there with her mother and her father, who we never see because he's passing a kidney stone in the living room.  The stone was easier to pass than this evening.  A ne'er-do-well brother arrives for a visit.  Why?  He probably didn't have tickets for the 12-12-12 concert either.  This guy is played by Broadway veteran Norbert Leo Butz and, for a stage name of three words, Mary Tyler Moore is a lot more lyrical. 

Meanwhile, Butz spends most of his stage time eating ice cream and, for a moment, I thought this was playing out as "The Tom Carvel Story."  None of this made any sense and I graviated to staring at the guy in the next row who I recognized from a soap opera.  Or maybe he was my waiter at dinner.  Minds really wander when you're incredibly bored.

Suddenly, we have the wisp of a plot development.  Ex-wife Judy Greer shows up and, despite the fact that I was lovingly admiring her red coiff, she announces that Norbert has stolen 27 million dollars.   End of act one.  Several folks put their coats on and left.  Perhaps there was still plenty of time to catch the Who at the concert.  Or they were opting for the longest cigarette break in the history of the Broadway theater.  As for me?  I stared at the stage.  Where Norbert Leo Butz was still sitting with his head down on the dining room table.  Huh?  Was this still part of the production?  Was he really wondering what the hell he was doing in this theater?  Was he that distraught over missing Bruce Springsteen as the concert's opening act? 

Like the whole play, none of this made sense to anybody.

Those gluttons for punishment returned for Act One and, save for one very well-acted scene between Butz and Greer, nothing really improved.  There's really no explanation for anything on stage and I begin to wonder when President Obama will begin the national conversation we need to have about plays like this.  At one point, Holmes has a tirade and she refers to the still-unseen-and-kidney-stone-laden dad offstage. 

"He's in there suffering."

If only somebody in the audience had cried out "so are we!"

Proving that all bad things also have to come to an end, the actors did their curtain call and I noted they did so with the slightest bit of reluctance and the hugest amount of relief.  You have to figure they all know that they're doing crap, right?  Or do they?  I think about how respected thespians can do this night after night. 

What can I say?  Katie Holmes can act.  Judy Greer is still cute.  And Norbert Leo Butz has a name that must be a bitch to sign when he's stopped for autographs at the stage door.  If there's anybody who hangs around long enough after a production of "Dead Accounts."

12-12-12 and "Dead Accounts."  Two things that will...and should never happen in our lifetimes ever again.


Dinner last night:  Bacon and cheese omelet.