Warren Leight, author of the successful Side Man, returns to the jazz world in his new play, which depicts the age-old war between artistic and bourgeois values. Martin and Daniel are twin brothers who once teamed up with Edddie Shine to form a hot horn section in a popular 50s swing band. The play opens up forty years later, when time and fate have conspired to shatter the bonds that knit these men together. Eddie is long dead, a victim of the drug- and booze-filled life of the jazzman; Daniel (the polished Nicolas Surovy) is a successful businessman, having given up music at the urging of his wife, who by force of will turned Daniel away from the kind of self-destruction that did Eddie in. Only Martin (John Spencer in a priceless performance) is still a working musician, though dissipation and poverty have reduced him to a rasping, sickly shell of his former self. Still living in his old sixth-story walk-up in Manhattan, too weak to go out much, Martin may be a burnt-out old druggie, but he still retains his pride, wit and scathing honesty.
His only visitor is Jordan (the always effective Jonathan Silverman), who is Eddie's son and a jazz musician in his own right, living the usual hand-to mouth existence. Into the picture comes Delia (newcomer Alexa Fischer, a talent to be watched), a beautiful, conventional rich girl from WASP heaven, Greenwich, CT. Despite their differences, Jordan and Delia are attracted to each other; their relationship is jump-charged when Jordan discovers she is the daughter of his God-father, the very Daniel who dropped Martin forty years ago and hasn't spoken to him since.
Coincidence plays a big part in Leight's plot, which is pretty thin all around and depends heavily on its comic dialogue to get by, but fortunately the characters are well drawn, especially those of the two brothers, now reunited when Delia insists her father go see Martin in hospital after a stroke has felled him. The successful sell-out and the ravaged trombonist face each other over the void that time has opened up between them; at stake is whether such opposites can effect some kind of reconciliation. The same issue dogs Delia and Jordan; will she give up her stockbroker fiancee and cushy life to find happiness with a man who makes beautiful music but wears thrift-store clothes? In that clash of values and lifestyles, Leight finds much pain, confusion, frustration and laughter, with most of the best lines coming from Martin's foul but pun-filled mouth. Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine offers an unsentimental but compassionate look at the price that musicians (and brothers and lovers) must pay to remain true to themselves.
The play takes place on an inventive set by Neil Patel, but director Yionoulis hasn't served Leight well; she puts almost every scene so far upstage that the audience is distanced from the warmth and intimacy of the writing.
