Knickerbocker

My, how I've fallen behind. Not for any good reason other than the fact that the next show I have to talk about was such a big fat waste of time, such a colossal suck of energy, and such a failure at providing anything of artistic merit or entertainment value that the act of writing about it feels like a waste. I try to find the good in things even when I don't like them, but let's just get this over with in a short post. Knickerbocker sucks.

Set at the Knickerbocker Grill on University Place, just down the street from where I work every day, the show is a series of two-person conversations in which pretentious schlub Jerry talks about whether or not he's ready for fatherhood. You literally watch two people in a booth for 90 minutes. Every scene change requires the change of one actor. Jerry is a constant. And a constant annoyance. Is there anything less interesting than watching one whiny middle-aged man come to terms with the fact that his universe is about to expand? Is there anyone more annoying to watch than a self-involved tool who ironically drinks Shirley Temples (why is there never food ordered?!) who doesn't listen to what anyone says and can't see anything past his own navel?

And can I mention that every single shred of dialogue feels like it was written and rewritten by the staff behind Dawson's Creek with the dial turned up to maximum forced wit? None of it felt remotely realistic. Not a single moment was believable. If there had been an intermission, I would have left. This whole show reeked of autobiographical self-indulgence, so by the end of the show, I didn't dislike the characters, none of whom were convincing. I disliked the playwright. This was the most infuriating evening I've spent at the theater this year. It was even worse than Mandy Patinkin in bed with an Anne Frank puppet. At least that failed in spectacular ways. Knickerbocker doesn't explode into terribleness. It just swallows itself into a black hole of suck.