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Variety
Brooks hits big (again) with ``Producers'' (2/19/01)
NEW YORK (AP) - When life's tribulations turn out to be too much, nebbish Howard Miller takes to his bed, holing up under the
covers, doing jigsaw puzzles and singing ``Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen'' with a blue hand puppet.
Trouble? At least he hasn't had to sit through ``Taller Than a Dwarf,'' the frantic and foolish farce that playwright Elaine May
and director Alan Arkin unleashed Monday at Broadway's Longacre Theater.
``Dwarf,'' a long 90 minutes, is a disappointment, considering the talent, on and off-stage, involved in this misguided enterprise.
The humor is sitcom deep with an undercurrent of nastiness provided by what appears to be May's weird contempt for her
underachieving hero.
Poor Howard is browbeaten and battered from the moment he gets up in the morning, goes into
the shower, turns on the water and breaks the knob.
Things go downhill from there, a series of catastrophes that precipitate Howard's retreat from
life, from his marriage and from his dead-end job in market research.
As Howard, Matthew Broderick, an engaging actor with proven comic ability, appears a bit
dazed as he staggers through May's morass of jokes, a surprising number of which misfire.
Parker Posey displays considerable stage presence as his exasperated wife, but she has very little to do except react to
Howard's desperation.
Into the fray rides Howard's stereotypical Jewish mother, a woman who lives to produce guilt while tossing off such observations
as ``A mother's heart never hardens, it just breaks.'' The role may be familiar, but the wonderful Joyce Van Patten delivers her
lines with a glee that finally produces some laughs.
Mom is accompanied by Dad, Howard's acquiescent father, nicely underplayed by Jerry Adler, and Howard's mother-in-law,
another Jewish momma played to comic perfection, this time by Marcia Jean Kurtz.
The trio conspire to get Howard out of bed, especially since his boss is on the way over, and the lad could get fired for refusing
to work. At first, May seems to be siding with the hapless, but good-hearted Howard. She seems to be poking fun at the
dom.com millionaires who are making all the money, while poor jerks like Howard face a lifetime of ordinary indignities - not to
mention only making enough money to pay the next credit card bill.
Yet by the end of the evening, Howard has joined the other side, refusing to be satisfied with only getting by. Being thankful for
not being poor, though, is like expressing gratitude for being ``taller than a dwarf,'' Howard explains.
The newly revitalized Howard is willing to sue to get what he wants, his inept sweetness turning into a determination that is
vaguely unpleasant, and even more important, unfunny.
Arkin's direction keeps the show moving at a furious pace with the actors high-pitched to the point of hysteria. For all the motion
and commotion, the play never seems to be going anywhere.
Designer Tony Walton has come up with a cleverly angled living room set, a skewered playing area that also extends to the stoop
in front of Howard's apartment building in Queens. It's a not-so-subtle reminder that Howard's life is equally out of whack. But
then so is the play, at least as an example of what should pass for comedy on Broadway at the beginning of the new millennium.
Matthew's new show is getting great reviews! Let's hope for the best in the upcoming Tony Awards!
"Taller Than A Dwarf"
'Dwarf' A Disappointment
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Critic (4/24/00)