‘It Must Be Him’ must be missed

Botched-up comedy stars Peter Scolari as a washed-up writer

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

It's ridiculously early to predict "It Must Be Him" will win best prize for the Worst Off Broadway Show of the 2010-2011 season, but I'm taking bets this total misfire will rank right up there. And I do mean rank. It makes the late, unlamented "Viagara Falls" look like Shakespeare.

Opening on Wednesday, this little stinker occupies the small Peter J. Sharp Theater atop Playwrights Horizons, so few people will actually be suffering through its pathetic 75 minutes.

Kenny Solms' execrable comedy centers on middle-aged Louie, a formerly successful TV writer whose career, bank account and personal life are deeply in the toilet.

Self-obsessed, self-pitying Louie desperately tries to craft a sellable screenplay and then a musical based upon his most recent miserable romance, but both prove to be duds. A faithful agent, a faithless boyfriend and the kvetching ghosts of Louie's parents are among the major characters.

Doesn't sound like so awful a plot, huh? Sadly, the tone of Solms' gag-infested script is so facetious and his clueless hero is so whiny that potential comedy fast curdles into a lame, unpalatable farce. An S&M dungeon orgy done as giddy musical comedy is a WTF jaw-dropper erupting out of nowhere.

Leading a 12-member company dotted with familiar faces like Alice Playten, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Liz Torres and John Treacy Egan, Peter Scolari valiantly puts an anxious puss on Louie's woes. Hopefully the producers are paying the actors big bucks to risk their reputations on such drivel.

"It Must Be Him" continues through Sept. 26 at the Peter J. Sharp Theater, 416 W. 42nd St., New York. Call (212) 279-4200 or visit www.ticketcentral.com.