New York Review: THE SPOILS
By Toby Zinman
For the Inquirer
Skinny pale arms stick out of a droopy white t-shirt. He plucks at his skin in meaningless, jumpy gestures, and sometimes talks—faster than seems possible--with his eyes closed as if he's reading off the inside of his eyelids. This is Jesse Eisenberg's terrific portrayal of Ben, an extreme neurotic personality and the central character in The Spoils, which boasts a supporting cast just as good as he is. Eisenberg also wrote this disturbing and very contemporary play
In an interview on David Letterman, Eisenberg (best known for his role as the inventor of Facebook in the movie The Social Network) confessed that he was not on social media because people write "mean things" about him on the internet and, "as a self-hating person," he didn't want to add to that. "Self-hating" pretty much describes Ben, Eisenberg's character in The Spoils-- too smart to be self-deluded, too self-deluded to be sane. The feelings of the thirty-something characters surrounding him range from pity to wary tolerance to outright loathing. And no wonder.
Ben is an erstwhile filmmaker, tossed out of graduate school and living on his father's money; his roommate Kalyan, played by Kunal Nayyar (aka Raj on The Big Bang Theory), is an economist from Nepal. Kalyan is sweetly earnest and eager to make good in the U.S.; Ben bullies him mercilessly, a demonstration of the power struggle between the entitled American and the striving immigrant. Kalyan's girlfriend, Reshma (Annapurna Sriram), a physician, has no patience for Ben's lies and manipulations, and what patience she has for Kalyan's meek forebearance is wearing thin.
When Ben discovers that Sarah (Erin Darke), the love of his life from grade school (talk about arrested development) is going to marry Ted (Michael Zegen), a successful banker, his fantasy of winning Sarah for himself takes over his life and things get creepier and creepier as he is haunted by childhood dreams and memories.
Whether the conclusion is redemptive or disastrous is left perfectly, suitably, ambiguous. And that inconclusiveness is part of what makes this play feel so contemporary. Scott Elliott's direction is dead on, although the set (designed by Derek McLane) doesn't quite work—too small, too tidy, too dully middle-class and middle-aged in taste.
The dialogue sounds absolutely authentic, as does the pitch perfect delivery of that dialogue— with just the kind of running jokes a group of smart friends would have—together with body language that speaks a world of meaning. All this creates a troubling picture of life as it is lived, clothes as they are worn, hair as it is combed, talk as it is talked. Looking around at the millennials in the audience, they looked like dead ringers for the people onstage.
The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Theatre, 480 W. 42nd St., NY Through June 28. Ticket Central 212-279-4200
