Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Hal Linden and Marilu Henner brush off their comedic chops in Ed Weinberger’s retro THE JOURNALS OF ADAM AND EVE

• By drediman
• July 12, 2024
• No Comments

This week, Ed Weinberger’s The Journals of Adam and Eve opened at the Sheen Center for Culture and Thought. The past few years have seen Weinberger — who is perhaps best known as the creator of such iconic television programs as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Cosby Show, and Taxi — turning his attention to playwriting. A sort of follow-up to his recent play Two Jews, Talking (which played an extended Off-Broadway run a few seasons ago at the Theatre at St. Clement’s), The Journals of Adam and Eve is another two-hander that quite literally charts the lives of the early Biblical couple, but in an accessible rom-com vernacular.

In a series of read journal entries, the play chronicles Adam and Eve’s contrasting perspectives at relates to the couple’s meeting, their budding romance, those tough child-bearing/rearing years, some marital growing pains, and finally their contented twilight years together. Written in a retro style that’s a throwback to a comic style of days gone by — the kind that, for many audiences members of a certain age, registers like comfort food and goes down easily — the play is at best lightly amusing fare, inducing easy chuckles from its “ba-dum-ching” type humor and all but begging audiences to be its built-in laugh track. Indeed, those nostalgic for Weinberger’s past achievements in television will likely find the most satisfaction and pleasure in this breezy summer fare. In the capable hands of Hal Linden and Marilu Henner, Adam and Eve come across amiably enough; it’s clear that the play gives the beloved veteran actors ample opportunity to brush up on their comedic acting chops.

That being said, The Journals of Adam and Eve may not be for everyone. Comic sensibilities have evolved since the 1970s and 1980s, which means that some theatergoers — particularly younger ones — may find Weinberger’s writing a bit antiquated and only intermittently funny. There’s also something contradictory about finding humor in Adam and Eve’s naïveté through the lens of contemporary society, an approach that eventually gets a tad wearying. Directed by Amy Anders Corcoran, the production actually works relatively well as a staged reading, smartly leaving much of the focus on Henner and Linden’s finely-crafted performances.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

THE JOURNALS OF ADAM AND EVE
Off-Broadway, Play
Sheen Center for Thought and Culture
1 hour, 20 minutes (without an intermission)
Through July 28