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But in both plays, America's pastime is merely a backdrop for what the story is really about
And what better place for grown men to sort out their philosophical differences than a baseball diamond?
The two-man comedy, which opened Tuesday at off-Broadway's John Houseman Theater, recounts a summer of angst, disillusionment and discovery for an extremely odd couple bound by the duties of coaching a Little League baseball team His domineering chauvinism starkly contrasts â€â€? and at times clashes with â€â€? Michael's benevolent logic He lives vicariously through his son's baseball successes, obsessing about the importance of winning and indulging revenge fantasies
Richard Dresser uses this analytic device in "Rounding Third" to depict a pair of fathers with polar ideologies
Like "Take Me Out," last season's Tony Award winner for best play, "Rounding Third" professes to be about baseball And his story attains brief moments of broader understanding â€â€? most notably during Arkin's monologue of Michael's prayer as an important fly ball descends on his awkward angel in the outfield
Michael is a mannerly widower determined to nurture a young stepson who can't cut it as an athlete The dialogue is funny â€â€? and made funnier by the delivery of Arkin and Clohessy â€â€? but it becomes somewhat predictable as the play progresses
Dresser slowly reveals in his characters more substance than their initial caricatures would suggest
Don's darker vision of an unforgiving world is more visible
Matthew Arkin (Michael) and Robert Clohessy (Don) turn in big-league performances and draw laughs by playing off their characters' dissimilarities
Under the direction of John Rando, Tony Award winner for "Urinetown," the actors simulate the vast expanse of a baseball field by creating and sustaining an imaginary set that extends well beyond the artificial grass-covered stage, filling the entire theater
One doesn't need to be a baseball fan to enjoy this show, though it may leave some feeling like uninitiated spectators at a slow-moving pitchers' duel
But the men's eventual reconciliation seems almost irrelevant, muting the importance of examining the coupling of a backward-thinking jock and an insecure namby-pamby Alter Egos Collide in 'Rounding Third'
Oct 7, 3:16 PM EST
One way to illuminate the idiosyncrasies of the psyche is to set one personality against its diametric opposite â€â€? its alter ego Hemmed in by a demanding boss who is years his junior, Michael feels the loss of his wife, a pain that is shrouded and repressed by his courteous sensibilities |