What I liked
The performances. The writing. And making it all work in the size of a living room.
What I didn't like
Nothing.
My overall impression
ONE STEP OVER is a rare treat, the kind of theater that once buzzed its way from Off-Off Broadway into American fabric, giving platform to the gifted, launching careers and sweeping many into the fishbowl of iconic fame. The good stuff seems harder to find these days, the gritty material that holds each minute with riveting performances that speak with originality yet familiarity. There’s no stage-stiffness here, no line reading, just the polished flow of talent and dedication. The marvelous work of David Lee Garver, Edward Hendershott, Ralph Guzzo, Andy Dubitsky and Zachary Sherman makes you forget you are at the theater, exchanging your sanctioned seat for a crack in the door, an open window from which you paused to intrude on the privacy of others. Writer/Director D.B. Levin invokes and joins the great Melfis and Mamets of yesteryear, the 100 proof that bites inside and stays with you longer than you planned, the stuff that makes you wonder where you can get some more. By the way, it’s a play about certain brokers, those underbelly schemers that prey on people with a phone instead of a gun, keeping their noses just above the legal waterline. You know; you see them on the news now and then. But forget all that. This is a play about us all. It’s about aspiration lost to desperation, morals wrapped in justification, and choices when sometimes there are none. Even if you don’t see plays, take somebody you like when you’re both looking for that one different night of entertainment, where sizzle parts for substance, and CGI pixilates against art in the flesh. Limited run. Don’t miss it.
