SHIT. MEET. FAN. Off-Broadway Reviews

Like the film it’s based on, “Shit. Meet. Fan.” offers an ending that suggests some or all of what we’ve seen on this night of an eclipse may not be exactly as it seems. It feels a lot like a cop-out. So laughs and astronomical feats aside, perhaps the most substantial thing this play offers is a new cardinal rule for every social occasion: Either be honest, or hold on tight to your phone’s passcode.

Shit. Meet. Fan.’s ostentatious awfulness just comes off as incurious and hacky. Is it any surprise that the few shreds of humanity and solidarity in the play will almost always be displayed by Logan and Hannah, the two members of the group who aren’t white? Or that they’re the only ones able to walk out of the flaming wreckage with some dignity intact? What exactly is revelatory at this point about “Men Suck,” “White People Suck”? Honestly, I might still pause for “Rich People Suck,” but the play is more interested in identity than in economics. In the end, Shit. Meet. Fan. feels almost like some kind of bitter prank: Get a bunch of famous TV actors together and use them to tell the audience “Shame, shame, shame.” What a waste of theater’s tools; what a sour, narrow use to put them to.

O’Hara’s rather rote direction does his play no favors, though he gets terrific performances from his talented cast. Messing, in particular, scores in a go-for-broke comedic performance, and Oberholtzer – a late replacement for Billy Magnussen, who dropped out for health reasons – will remind anyone who saw his Tony-nominated performance in Take Me Out just how powerful an actor he is. Wu subtly demonstrates how her Asian character likely has more in common with Logan than the white majority gathered here, and Harris and Krakowski effectively tap into their sitcom roots while adding some sinister undercurrents – a description that, come to think of it, pretty much applies to the play itself.

“S.M.F.” lives up to that title. The play delivers far fewer laughs than a decent production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” But what it lacks in genuine wit – many of O’Hara’s zingers land flat — this s–t show compensates with sheer outrageousness as the phone calls quickly turn X-rated. O’Hara skewers white privilege and the pathetic sex fantasies it unleashes. In the process, he creates a super-stud character that borrows a lot from Mandingo.

As a predictable, foul-mouthed comedy, Shit. Meet. Fan. could work, especially with this top-tier cast, but it’s clear O’Hara has set his sights higher as both playwright and director. As his body of work will indicate, he is one of our best creative minds working in the theater today. Shit. Meet. Fan. doesn’t rise to the level we’ve come to expect.

Most of what’s revealed lacks any real bite. O’Hara can be acidic; he’s not afraid to let characters get down and dirty. But while the couples here excoriate each other, they don’t go far enough, and the problems they’re hashing out don’t ignite. Only Tramell Tillman’s Logan, the lone Black man among his privileged white friends, has a grievance worth spending time on.

In a play of twists, it is not surprising that just as an eclipse feels like a surreal moment outside our everyday, so—it finally turns out—the play we have been watching may occupy its own unique orbit. Finally, as three characters silently stand on the terrace in the shadow of the eclipse, a wordless point is well-made: in a world where so much goes unsaid, the most destructive of personal and cultural poisons silently multiply.

O’Hara has a gift for writing comic set pieces, like a musical interlude set to a Nicki Minaj classic, as well as for punchlines that recall the cutting putdowns of ’80s sitcoms like Designing Women and The Golden Girls, as when Rodger dismisses Eve’s claims of political activism: “The only marching she’s done is to a sample sale at Balenciaga.” The cast, most veterans of long-running sitcoms, seems perfectly aligned to roles that call for a tricky blend of grounded cartoonishness. Most are playing variations on roles that are familiar to TV fans, and that built-in good will tempers some of the nastiness here. The actors work together seamlessly to make some fundamentally unlikable characters entertaining enough to tolerate for a few hours, waiting for their well-deserved uppance to come.

All too predictably, calls and messages expose partygoers’ secrets, lies, betrayals, reckless cheating, and backstabbing. It’s all too much to believe, frankly, and the play’s twisty ending is there to make you reconsider what just went down.

Shit. Meet. Fan. (the title is really fun) proves entertaining thanks to many witty lines and the skillful comic performances of its ensemble, several of whom have honed their chops on hit television sitcoms. All of them do excellent work, with Messing practically stealing the show with her uproarious line readings, facial expressions and body language. And it all looks terrific, thanks not only to the highly attractive performers but also Clint Ramos’ elegant bi-level set design that will induce apartment envy.

The characters in Shit. Meet. Fan., however, are more annoying than unnerving. And, unfortunately, predictable. (Though the actors, especially Tillman and Messing, do their darnedest to create a bit of mystery.) As for the twist at the end—which is taken from the Genovese movie, and which we won’t reveal here—it feels like an easy way out. Something, say, a long-running TV show might do.

Unfortunately, ambition exceeds form despite a starry cast that leans into familiar tropes, including Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Krakowski, Constance Wu, and Debra Messing. Three couples, a friend who arrives dateless (Tramell Tillman), and a whiny teenage daughter (Genevieve Hannelius) who bookends the piece, make for a lot of interwoven narratives in addition to those unseen characters who DM into the action.

O’Hara doesn’t seem all that interested in these characters’ relationships. They are simply the métier to present this thesis on white privilege and toxic masculinity—two topics I am very interested. But the delivery of the material makes it hard to hear the message he’s getting at. Reading the play afterwards I think some powerful moments got totally lost on stage. O’Hara keeps throwing this high-pitched bitchy-toned chum into the water to stir up these non-stop shark fights. But the constant sharpness undercuts the real human nature at issue.