Mosley a work-in-progresses

Adam Pettle's uneven play fails to involve auds completely

Canadian V.I.P. playwright Adam Pettle has written another play. This one, Mosley and Me, deals once again with a gambling sub-lot as in his earlier play, Zadie's Shoes. However, the characters in this latest work, commissioned by a combination of the Canadian Stage Company and a recently formed group, DVxT (Distance = Velocity x Time), are not as warm and sympathetic as in the first one, nor does their story touch the heart.
Nevertheless, it is an efficient piece of theatre and shows off to advantage Mr. Pettle's ability to write very good and believable dialogue.
A guy named Johnny Mosley comes to work at Mitzy's Bagels, which is Nathan Mitz's family's bagel shop. The employer and employee tend to do a great deal of verbal sparring as they knead and roll the bagel dough, but their relationship soon warms into a friendly one, so friendly in fact that Johnny is invited to take part in Nathan's Saturday night poker game. Short of money, Johnny seems to be setting up a sting in order to cheat one of their well-heeled players. However, the sting becomes a sting within a sting, somewhat as occurred in the Newman-Redford movie.
Nathan is played by Alex Poch-Goldin whom I have appreciated several times during the past few years, particularly in the recent Remnants and last season's very absorbing Belle. He is perfectly cast as the self-centered scion of a Jewish family in financial trouble. It is not his fault that he loses our interest toward the end of the play. We never see the complications of the sting as it unfolds. Instead, Mr. Pettle has left poor Nathan on stage, gun in hand, rapidly describing the action that we never see and can't really imagine. The result is an ending that needs a lot more material if we are going to care what happens to Johnny.
Johnny Mosley is played by Randy Hughson. Mr Hughson is another highly competent performer. He invests his part with all the right intonations and body language, and is quite believable as a shallow person trying to appear deep. Unfortunately, the role of Johnny doesn't give Randy the opportunity to show off his comedic sense as was the case when he played Bear in Adam Pettle's Zadie's Shoes.
Vikki Anderson has directed and designed, more successfully in the former capacity than in the latter. Even so, as I have just written, she has allowed the ending of the play to be clumsy, which lets the story down, which is a pity.
The printed notes tell us that Mr. Pettle was required to write a two-character play. The last three plays that I have seen have all been plays with only one or two characters. Two characters can hold a stage well if the plot's development depends upon the growth and interaction of the characters. In this play, although the playwright intended otherwise, the story is not character-driven. It is plot-driven, and the critical action of the plot is described, not witnessed. Therein lies the play's weakness. I suspect that in due course the playwright will revisit this work. In the meantime it is worth seeing by true theatregoers as a "work in progress".
Mosley and Me plays at the CanStage Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs until December 13, 2003. Tickets are available by phoning 416.368.3110.

Publication Date: 2003-12-07
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