IJB Productions Presents

THE BLACK BOOK

American Theatre of Actors
The Sargent Theatre
314 West 54th Street
NY NY

13 September-22 November 2015

Written and Directed by Phil Blechman
Featuring: Gabe Templin, Anto Pereira, David Siciliano, Margy Love, Sean Borderes, Haley Dean, Catie Humphreys, Lauren Testerman, Joe Reece

THE BLACK BOOK is billed as a mystery thriller. It is certainly mysterious, but I’m not so sure how thrilling it is. A young woman walks around in an unfastened strait-jacket carrying oversized chess pieces. A hyper young man smokes and talks directly to the audience. The other characters appear mostly normal. However, all interactions are highly overwrought right from the beginning, which is confusing as they all seem upset even before the mystery really begins. When it starts at that highly dramatic level, the play has no build. The twist is pretty easily figured out, too, although it didn’t really survive too much scrutiny.

At the performance I saw, the lighting was not functioning, so that may have added to the awkwardness of the actors’ levels. It’s too bad, since the sound design was terrific, and added a lot to the ambiance.

- Jean Tait -