Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Peter Gil-Sheridan’s THIS SPACE BETWEEN US explores the consequences of making life-changing decisions

• By drediman
• March 13, 2022
• No Comments

Last night, I attended a performance of Peter Gil-Sheridan’s This Space Between Us Off-Broadway at Theatre Row. The piece is presented by Keen Company, which returns to in-person performances with the world premiere of Mr. Gil-Sheridan’s play. The work tells the story of Jamie, a gay corporate lawyer who shakes up his life – and the lives of those around him – when he decides to quit his lucrative job to do more tangible good in the world (i.e., move to Africa to work for an NGO).

The play gets off to a shaky start with sit-com type writing that has the potential to get easily tiresome. But as the play reveals its more serious themes, there’s actually much to commend it. Indeed, once the work gets more comfortable in its own skin, the playwright actually does a good job of balancing Jamie’s existential dilemma of needing to seek out a more meaningful life and the relative shallowness of his family, friends, and romantic partner. If one views the play as a study in contrast between Jamie’s simmering personal crisis and the silliness of everyone else, then it makes perfect sense that that a majority of the characters are written and performed as caricatures. Mr. Gil-Sheridan hits a universal chord in his exploration of the consequences of making life-changing decisions, which includes the painful process of either shedding people in one’s life or evolving relationships.

The production has been steadily directed by Keen Company’s longtime artistic director Jonathan Silverstein, who deals with both the play’s frivolity and more somber themes well. Level-setting the the play is Ryan Garbayo’s central performance as Jamie. It’s a sensitive and nuanced portrayal that I found quietly magnetic; it’s no wonder the play’s other characters are obsessed with him and his life decisions. The rest of the cast do well to vibrantly animate the play’s other surface-level roles.

RECOMMENDED

THIS SPACE BETWEEN US
Off-Broadway, Play
Keen Company at Theatre Row
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Through April 2