CurtainUp
CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings
HOME PAGE

Search Curtainup

SITE GUIDE

REVIEWS

REVIEW ARCHIVES

ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP

FEATURES

NEWS

Broadway
Off-Broadway

NYC Restaurants

BOOKS and CDs

OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Philadelphia
Elsewhere

QUOTES

TKTS

PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS

LETTERS TO EDITOR

FILM

LINKS

MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
A CurtainUp Review
Winners and Losers

" You're afraid. You just don't like to lose."
—Marcus
" Yeah, of course I don't like to lose. Neither do you. And what you're going to do here, you're just going to keep it remotely competitive so you win by just a bit."
—Jamie, discussing a challenge to play ping-pong

Winners and Losers
Marcus Youssef and James Long. (Photo: Pavel Antonov)
What's a little trash talk between friends? In Winners and Losers, real-life friends and collaborators Marcus Youssef and James Long draw a chalk square on the stage and create a playing field for the eponymous game of their own invention. The rules are simple: a subject is presented for judgement and deemed either a winner or a loser.

As arbitrary as it is seemingly inconsequential (some topics include Pamela Anderson, Mexico, and microwave ovens), the game emphasizes competition for the sake of competition. But as the subjects get more personal and the stakes get higher, can the two make it out with their friendship, or sense of self-worth, in one piece?

Directed by Chris Abraham Winners and Losers offers an interesting concept—the public staging of a real-life friendship and its discontents—and eagerly engages difficult topics like social class head-on. Yet the show finds itself mired in the tension between the play as reality and as construct. Even if all the lines reflect true conversations between the two men, this true-to-life element is never reconciled with the fact that the show has been performed numerous times already (it originated in Canada and toured internationally before arriving at Soho Rep), and will be performed numerous times to come.

As a result, we end up in a sort of limbo, neither real nor fictitious. At some points, Youssef and Long call attention to the fact that they've performed the show before; other times, they react as if they are hearing and responding to something for the first time. The problem is that we're particularly aware that they're not. Certainly, all theater is artifice, at least to a degree, but the crucial difference here is a frustrating dissonance created by embracing that artificiality one moment and denying it the next.

Once you start looking at the show with this in mind, it's hard to stop. When a spontaneous wrestling match breaks out, it feels calculated and emotionally removed (I was reminded of the characteristically disaffected characters in a Richard Maxwell play). Maybe that's the point: the ritualization, by rote, of masculine rivalry made physically manifest? But it's hard to shake the feeling that, after repeatedly performing this intensely personal show, the performers might simply need to detach themselves from it, as a defense mechanism if nothing else.

Indeed, the content does get quite heavy, and Youssef and Long deserve commendation for subjecting themselves to such thorough examination (perhaps "attack" might be the more appropriate word in places). They confront their beliefs, their privileges and disadvantages, and their hopes and fears. The moments that are most riveting for the audience are those which you know must be the most brutal for the actors, and the audience is thus implicated as an eager witness to the emotional blood sport being enacted before them.

So then maybe it's a Catch-22: the more charged a performance is, the more it might encourage detachment as the show's run continues. Such an evolution would be, in the creators' minds, an important part of the project, which is as much about how the show affects each of them individually and the relationship between the two of them over time as it is about any individual performance. (A text by Youssef and Long offering an interesting discussion of this long-term outlook was included with press materials but strangely omitted from the program.)

Ultimately, Winners and Losers rewards viewers for going along for the ride, but the road there is bumpy. The early rounds of the game are far less compelling than the later ones, and the show can never quite shake a sense of manufacturedness that constantly battles against the autobiographical core of the play. Even while the show offers a healthy dose of real talk, it's still a play, artificiality and all.

Winners and Losers
Created and performed by Marcus Youssef and James Long
Directed by Chris Abraham
Lighting Design: Jonathan Ryder
Set Design Consultant: Arnulfo Maldonado
Producer: Kirsty Munro
Production Manager: Elia Kirby
Stage Manager: Lisa McGinn
Presented by Soho Rep in association with Theatre Replacement and Neworld Theatre
Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission
Soho Rep, 46 Walker Street
Tickets: $35 ($20 student rush; $30 general rush; $0.99 for the Sunday, January 11, 7:30 pm performance); www.sohorep.org or 212-352-3101
From 1/2/2015; opened 1/6/2015; closing 2/1/2015
Performance times: January 8–11, 14–18, 21–25, and 28–February 1 at 7:30 pm; January 10,17, 24, 31 at 3 pm
Reviewed by Jacob Horn based on 1/9/2015 performance
REVIEW FEEDBACK
Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
  • I agree with the review of Winners and Losers
  • I disagree with the review of Winners and Losers
  • The review made me eager to see Winners and Losers
Click on the address link E-mail: esommer@curtainup.com
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V):

Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review.

For a feed to reviews and features as they are posted add http://curtainupnewlinks.blogspot.com to your reader
Curtainup at Facebook . . . Curtainup at Twitter
Subscribe to our FREE email updates: E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com
put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message. If you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country.
The New Similes Dictionary
New Similes Dictionary


Slings & Arrows  cover of  new Blu-Ray cover
Slings & Arrows- view 1st episode free




Book Of Mormon MP4 Book of Mormon -CD
Our review of the show
amazon




©Copyright 2015, Elyse Sommer.
Information from this site may not be reproduced in print or online without specific permission from esommer@curtainup.com