| . | 06/23/2009
Our House
By: Deirdre Donovan 
Morena Baccarin as ambitious news anchor
Bubbling beneath the surface of Theresa Rebeck’s new play Our House at Playwrights Horizons is a seething diatribe aimed at the decaying values of television. Although Rebeck pulls out all the stops to give us a lucid reflection on the toxic effects of television, the drama falls curiously flat. Rebeck, who has worked as a writer for popular television shows like “NYPD Blue,” seems ideally equipped to write this kind of behind-the-scenes realistic play. But instead of a spicy social commentary on TV-land, the piece is too dated to have real impact.
Rebeck attempts to weld two yarns into one story, but the results are ultimately clunky: the first plot gives us an up-close look at a television network faced with dwindling ratings; the second one shows us a slice of Middle America (viewers in St. Louis)reacting to the daily barrage of “news” coverage and TV entertainment. The two plots curiously converge during the evening, which makes for some highly bizarre—and often incredulous-- incidents on stage.
Rebeck’s play calls to mind Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 screenplay Network that gave us Howard Beal, the “mad prophet of the airwaves.” The difference between the two works, however, is that with Chayefsky, we enter the madhouse of television unobtrusively. And with Rebeck, we find ourselves smack in the middle of the madhouse from the get go. Before fifteen minutes have passed, we meet chief executive Wes (Christopher Evan Welch), his news assistant Stu (Stephen Kunken), and the ditzy anchor-woman Jennifer (Morena Baccarin) in the TV studio. But Rebeck never succeeds in giving us the razor-sharp witticisms or a wildcard character like Howard Beal. Thus, we get lots of noise and shouting matches in the TV studio (and later on at the St. Louis household), but there’s nothing particularly new to ponder in Rebeck’s scenario.
Rebeck’s work is in part inspired by the controversy that swirled around Julie Chen, the CBS morning news anchor, who became host of the network’s “Big Brother” show. Many viewers felt that she and her husband Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, had jointly blurred the line between serious “newscasting” and entertainment by having her host the premiere of “Big Brother” in July 2000. But will most playgoers “get” that Our House is a fictive rendering of Julie Chen’s double-duty work at CBS? It’s unlikely.
Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening), who bravely directs the enterprise, just can’t make the double-barreled story come together in a clean, polished fashion. Costume designer Susan Hilferty surprisingly has more leverage in the show. The character Jennifer must be dressed to the nines for the TV camera, and Hilferty delivers a raft of stunning outfits for her.
The acting is uneven. But the real standout of the evening is Jeremy Strong, playing the Merv character. Strong is appropriately pathological in the role of the freeloading St. Louis roommate, who lives with 3 other mismatched room-mates (played by Katie Kreisler, Mandy Siegfried, and Haynes Thigpen). His addiction to TV—and his critiquing of Jennifer on the tube-- will add a surreal twist to the evening. Even in the over-the-top scenes in Act Two, where his Merv turns into a killer gunman, holding his housemates at gunpoint, Strong comes across as an utterly convincing psycho.
Rebeck’s latest play based on the exploits of television big-shots and Middle America viewers is less compelling than some of her other plays like Mauritius and Bad Dates. But playgoers should not dismiss this seasoned playwright as a has-been. She may have missed her mark in this piece about a ratings-hungry television executive and a rising star anchor woman. But with some fresh inspiration, perhaps Rebeck will surprise us in the future with a more pertinent drama.
At Playwrights Horizons, located at 416 42nd Street.
Tickets, $65, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or purchase online at the Playwrights Horizons website at http://www.playwrightshorizons.org
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