Working Stiff: Ethan Coen’s Offices at the Linda Gross Theater

Offices, three short comedies about the cubicle world, is about as fun as a day job.

Working Stiff: Offices at the Linda Gross Theater
Photo: Doug Hamilton

“Tedious” is not a word I often associate with the Coen brothers—or with theater director Neil Pepe for that matter. But Ethan Coen’s latest on-stage diversion, Offices, three short comedies about the cubicle world, is about as fun as a day job. One can never be sure what’s going on inside the brothers’ collective mind though, in this case, one question begs to be asked of the Ethan half, “O Brother, What Art Thou Thinking?”

“Am I the only sane person in this room?” a character in Offices cries. “Not even if you were alone,” his wife gamely replies, Catskills style. The show isn’t three plays so much as a workshop montage of journal snippets, half-formed ideas, repetitive gags and jokes with punchlines seen from a mile away (unless, I guess, you happen to be part of the Manhattan theatergoing Medicaid set, the only ones who found a stale gag about Dick Cheney shooting someone in the face uproarious). Dialogue from the mediocre cast (save for a typically showboating F. Murray Abraham) is mostly barked or yelled. Indeed, Pepe seems to have retained his Mamet mindset from Speed-the-Plow. The piece doesn’t move forward but in easy, predictable circles, making its relatively short running time (a little over an hour) seem hamster-on-a-treadmill endless—quite a feat considering many scenes last mere minutes.

The brief glimpses of crankiness and cranks, water cooler politics and under-the-desk oral sex, suburban couches and corporate layoffs—all divided by quick-cut blackouts and annoying snap-crackle-pop music—are so uninteresting that only two of the show’s stars truly shine. I’m talking about the rotating, stark gray minimalist set design courtesy of Riccardo Hernandez, and David Weiner’s inventive noir lighting, which give the banal production an Edward Hopper feel. Yes, you know things have gone terribly wrong in Coen-land when visuals the Academy Award winner didn’t create upstage his poorly developed script. With all the youthful, vibrant productions running nearby, someone should have told Coen that this spring’s off-Broadway is no curtain for old men.

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Offices is now playing at the Linda Gross Theater.

This article was originally published on The House Next Door.

Lauren Wissot

Lauren Wissot is a film critic and journalist, filmmaker and programmer, and a contributing editor at both Filmmaker and Documentary magazines. Her work can also be regularly read at Salon, Bitch, The Rumpus, and Hammer to Nail.

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