In Jack Thorne’s Sunday at the Atlantic Theater, a group of twentysomethings meet on the day in question for a monthly book club discussion, drink too much vodka, and reveal their insecurities and emotional wounds. Shy, lonely Marie (a weirdly magnetic Sadie Scott) has just lost her publishing internship, while her more confident roommate Jill (vibrant Julianna Canfield) is moving ahead in the same industry and has a solid relationship with wealthy Milo (appropriately smarmy Zane Pais). The group is completed with Milo’s friends, Keith and Alice, neither of whom are sufficiently developed as characters (Christian Strange and Ruby Frankel try their best to give some subtext, but they’re not given a lot to work with). There’s also Bill, (ingratiating Maurice Jones), Marie’s downstairs neighbor who might have a crush on her.
Thorne, a Tony-winning playwright for Harry Potter and the Lost Child, provides some intriguing insights into the group dynamics, and it’s refreshing to hear a play where young people are discussing literature and politics. But too much of the action consists of the friends moaning about their lack of passion and direction—a flaw the obnoxious Milo find with the books they read. “This is all self-pity,” he bitches about Anne Tyler’s “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.” He could have talking about the play. In addition, Alice acts as a third-person narrator for huge chunks of time, removing us even further from the characters.
Obie-winning director Lee Sunday Evans enlivens this mostly flat material with propulsive direction and choreography. She has the actors vigorously dance out their suppressed emotions during scene breaks which turn out to be more involving than the spoken dialogue.
Fortunately, the final scene gives off a few quirky sparks. After the party has dispersed and everyone has left Marie alone, Bill comes upstairs and clumsily attempts to seduce her. The dialogue is strange, off-kilter, and charming. Sadie Scott and Maurice Jones dance a delicate, push-pull tango that’s lovely to watch. So this was not an entirely wasted Sunday.
