John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle do their best as ‘Mr. & Mrs. Fitch’

Voluble new comedy talks a lot about nothing

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

A new but curiously empty piece by the talented Douglas Carter Beane, "Mr. & Mrs Fitch" is a comedy about absolutely nothing — in more ways than one.

Opening on Monday at Second Stage Theatre, where Beane's sardonic "The Little Dog Laughed" bowed a few seasons ago, "Mr. & Mrs. Fitch" at least boasts brilliant players in the personable form of John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle as a madcap Manhattan duo who write an influential gossip column.

Returning to their swanky duplex after a routine night of party going, the incredibly glib couple find themselves stuck for a noteworthy item. Facing a deadline, the two rashly toss off a fictitious bit of scandal regarding an imaginary celebrity. To their pleasure, the blogosphere as well as various news services scoop up the dish and soon the Fitches are flying high with their fabulous manufactured chum.

Then to their horror, the gossipmongers learn that a wannabe boldface name has hijacked the identity of their creation. What are they going to do about it?

Actually, they don't do much of anything because Beane's thin and none-too-plausible scenario has by now long since petered out, leaving behind a few nice quips like "gossip is just news that's interesting" and a definition of the theater as "that thing movie people do when they want to announce they're available for television."

All too much of the voluble two-act proceedings consists of the facetious Fitches elaborately carrying on together in the cocktails-and-laughter tradition of screwball Jazz Age icons. Had the playwright bothered to explore the whys and wherefores of this scarily artificial mindset the couple has constructed to shut out their crass contemporary times, "Mr. & Mrs. Fitch" might be something interesting. Instead, they merely gabble on and on and on with increasingly tiresome results.

Romping about designer Allen Moyer's ultra-glam setting, complete with a spiral staircase and a grand piano, an aristocratic Lithgow and a bewitching Ehle do their considerable best to evoke Scott and Zelda, Noel and Gertie and the Lunts all rolled into one. It's not their fault that the handsome package director Scott Ellis has ordered up for them contains zilch.

"Mr. & Mrs. Fitch" continues through April 4 at Second Stage, 305 W. 43rd St., New York. Call (212) 246-4422 or visit www.2ST.com.