Review by Robert Liebowitz

The great playwright Leonard Melfi (1932-2001) was a pioneer of the off-off Broadway movement that occurred primarily in the 1960s. Performed mostly in assorted venues in and around New York’s Greenwich Village, Melfi was primarily known for writing most one-acts, which concerned a loneliness, a melancholy that would emerge from a conversation between two people. “Birdbath’, performed all over the world, would be the best example of this.  His first collection of works was suitably named ‘Encounters’. His second collection of works had the name–you guessed it–‘Later Encounters’.

Rollin Jewett’s ‘Our Little Secret’, presented at the Downtown Urban Arts Festival at Playwrights Horizons, is a successful 21st Century variation of Melfi’s work, with similar ideas of frustration and despair, through the prism of natural conversation.

Mr. Jewitt’s ear for dialogue–for natural conversation–is first rate, as he guides us seamlessly into the world inhabited by Darlene (expertly played by Lydia Kalmen, with comic chops to boot), a middle-aged woman spending her Friday nights alone with her Haagen-Daz in her condo in Florida. A knock on the door, and a stranger (Thamer Jendoubi) somehow cajoles his way into her living space, wearing a mask.

Neither film noir, nor Feydeau Farce, nor Theater of the Absurd, the play has its own magic and irregular heartbeat, and we experience the interactions between the two in a quiet but captivating way…which, after all, is the point. There are snappy one liners everywhere, especially the one uttered by Darlene to her masked man of mystery: ‘You look like a cross between Zorro and The Boston Strangler.” Certainly, a playwright who composes a clever line like that is a playwright to be reckoned with.

To continue the plot raised in the play’s first few moments, a detective (well played by the versatile Vincent Ticali), makes his entrance in the latter part of the play, and this creates a nice mixture of comedy, drama, and mystery, as they all come together to make a nice, tasty stew. What started out as a quiet Friday night turns into something more than all the characters bargained for, and this makes for an intriguing, refreshing evening in the theater.

Director Jay Michaels continues his stellar work as director, and adds to his canon by keeping the play moving at a brisk pace, mining the text for all that it’s worth, and displaying an impeccable insight into both the rules of comedy, and the other rules that govern that other thing that is not as funny–loneliness.

As part of a festival, the play had a one-performance run; a pity. Look for it if it ever appears standing by itself, or with another of Mr. Jewett’s work.