THEATER - JOHN SIMON
New York magazine
November 20, 1995
There is a cheekily quirky new voice in our theater. It belongs to Christopher Kyle, by far the most stimulating playwright I have encountered in many a buffaloed moon. The Monogamist is a comedy with a fuzzy protagonist, hence a soft center; but around it are four vital and vibrant characters, situations as droll as they are thought-provoking, dialogue that fairly bursts with wry self-assurance, and humor neatly balancing benign perspicacity with prickly social comment. We are confronted with the sexual, marital, and existential meanderings of a stagnating fortyish couple; a much younger lover for each spouse; and a sexy self-styled poetry critic on an obscure TV program, blithely sowing mischief.
The central character, Dennis Jensen, a befuddled poetaster, is cheerfully writing undistinguished verse while living off his wife, Susan Barry, a professor of feminist studies at Princeton. As a guest on Poetry Beat, the interview program of his former student and lover Jasmine Stone, Dennis is unnerved by Jasmine's insistence that the real author of his poetry is his wife. Susan, feeling their marriage souring, is similarly beset with confusion. She starts an affair with her randy student Tim, and Dennis gets involved with an equally young post-flower flower child, Sky. Kyle manipulates this quintet's rubbings against one another into a seriocomic dance of devastating lucidity, backed up by a ferociously accurate ear for Bush-era talk.
As Dennis meditates morosely whether he's "too old to be this obscure," and Susan, grading papers beside him on the sofa, coos sweetly, "You're not obscure; just marginal," we know right off we are in good hands. If only the wimpy Dennis, trying obsessively to find himself, did not suggest so disturbingly that there is nothing there to find, although this is partly the fault of Arliss Howard, the uncharismatic actor playing him. But Caroline Seymour as Jasmine, Timothy Olyphant as Tim, and Chelsea Altman as Sky are just about perfect, and Lisa Emery (Susan) is, if possible, even better than that.
There is a melancholy sense of loss hovering over the hilarious proceedings, as communication within age groups proves scarcely less flimsy than across age gaps. Scott Elliott has directed unerringly amid nice design by Derek McLane (set), Eric Becker (costumes), and Peter Kaczorowski (lights); also saucy transitions gleaned from TV by Mark McKenna. And you'll have as much fun as the actors, a rare thing these days.