I’m not sure I can say much more about Michael Shaw Fisher’s play, The Amazing Sex Life Of Rabbits, other than…go see it, now!
Mr. Fisher (who I interviewed here) who also directs this Off-Broadway premier of his play at SoHo Playhouse, as part of that theatre’s SoHo Playhouse International Fringe Encore Series, unleashes a superlative cast of Schoen Hodges as “Bobby,” “Leigh Wulf, his wife “Elise,” his ex-wife, “Danielle,” played by Rebecca Larsen and Richard Cisneros-Jones as “Carson.” But as conniving a revenge-seeking narcissist as Danielle is, how much scene-robbing Carson manages, the subtler performances by Hodges and the cast member I truly consider the glue of the piece, the amazing Wulf, are equal to wilder couple.
As I said to Mr. Fisher when I shook his hand outside the theatre after sitting through this 75-mute show I never wanted to end, his economy of language is one of the highlights here. Being one myself, I know how a playwright can prattle on, regard every word as sacrosanct. In the case of Michael Shaw Fisher, a man who has plenty of plays to his name and is an actor as well, he makes sure things move right along, in action, blocking and word, creating what I consider one of the best plays I have ever seen.
When the specifics of the four-some dinner comedy is first revealed, I had a moment of ‘Oh, here we go, I have seen this particular scenario too many times before,” but Fisher and his swirling dervish of a perfect cast unfold an ‘evening’ I never expected; plenty comic, delightfully naughty and surely sad at times. But nobody here ever loses sight of where we are headed (which you’ll never predict and come away loving) as things are tied up as tightly as they began, earn the standing-o I was part of the day I saw these particular rabbits hop.
Let me also give a mention to Mia Criss’s set design and lighting designer Charlie Kilgore.
The Amazing Sex Life of Rabbits run until March 28th. Get your tickers here:
https://ci.ovationtix.com/35583/production/1256494
Molly Murphy Weinberg
