Further Than the Furthest Thing is the absolute worst kind of bad play -- the kind where you cannot imagine anyone deriving any sort of pleasure from it. An unbearably downcast, coma-inducing story by Scottish playwright Zinnie Harris, it is the latest Manhattan Theater Club production that begs the question of why anyone there ever thought it would work. It is also the latest import from the West End that transfers so poorly in America, you wonder what's in the water over there. Even for those with a penchant for overly precious dramas with thudding metaphors, Further is still deeply unsatisfying as theater because it doesn't even register a requisite minimal interest in any of the characters involved. It's more like a funeral procession, where the audience sits in silence and patiently waits for something to break it, for a reprieve so they may go on back to their normal lives.
Oddly enough, this is the very theme of the play. Set in the isolated island of Tristan de Cunha in 1961, Further depicts a gaggle of natives including Bill and Mill Lavarello (Robert Hogan and Jenny Sterlin), an older couple who live in a ramshackle home as a pastor and his garrulous wife, who anxiously await the arrival of Francis (Dan Futterman), their nephew returning from the civilized world. Francis does return, but with a mysterious guest, the sly businessman Mr. Hansen (Peter Gerety), who fancies opening a factory on the deserted land. Francis also reconnects with Rebecca (Jennifer Dundas), a very pregnant young woman always meant to be his lifelong love.
The natives speak their own sort of Nell-like dialogue; for instance, penguin eggs becomes "pinnawin heggs." Like every other exchange in the play, it is drawn out well past a logical conclusion. Harris seems to think that saying things three times or more will amplify their importance; alas, they weren't even interesting the first time.
Suddenly, bad becomes worse when Rebecca reveals the secrets of her pregnancy and asks for the aid of Bill in killing her born child, the arrival of a volcano causes a literal eruption in their lives, and England then becomes the regional setting. The biggest mistake of the production is the assumption that a play about miserable people also has to be miserable. Neil Pepe's direction seems almost non-existent here; scenes lumber on without making a point, almost as if the actors performed them without his assistance or willingness to say "Stop!" and reconstruct them. The tone is so crushingly earnest and deadening that finding a way to even remotely care about its relatively unappealing lot of characters seems like a futile task.
There are many noteworthy people involved here, and one suspects through their haphazard work that even they may intuitively know how lousy the play is. Dan Futterman, in particular, is normally a wonderfully versatile, charming actor, but here he's saddled with a ridiculous accent and even more ridiculous dialogue and does very little to redeem the material. He just gives up like many of the other cast members, save for Sterlin, who simply irritates with a distressingly obvious and unlikable performance. The players seem devoid of personality; like a strong wind sucked the very life out of them before curtain. But the real blame should lie on playwright Harris, who evidently has very personal reasons for writing the play, but almost none of that passion is on display in her leaden, often maddeningly repetitive prose.
You can make the setting as exotic as you want, but unless you come up with a lesson fresher than modern civilization being evil and purer lifestyles being more desirable, you might as well be writing a third-rate soap opera, which would still be preferable to enduring this dreary slog of a play.
