| “The Bedwetter” at Arena Stage | |
| Last Edit: writerkev 07:21 am EST 02/10/25 | |
| Posted by: writerkev 07:17 am EST 02/10/25 | |
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| I saw Sarah Silverman’s “The Bedwetter” last night, not having seen it in NYC or read any of the reviews from Off-Broadway. It’s being produced in DC in association with Tom Kirdahy and the Weisslers, so clearly there are commercial ambitions for it. It brings me no joy to say this, but I didn’t find it successful at all. I read Jesse Green’s negative review in the Times on the way home and found myself agreeing with practically all of it, so I wonder what has been changed between then and now. (It seems it was two acts in NYC and is now an intermissionless hour-and-forty or so.) The story doesn’t seem to want to be a musical at all. Nothing happens, really. It’s more a description of states of being. A 10-year-old girl is living with this kind of family and has this kind of problem, then late in the show recriminations worthy of an Arthur Miller tragedy surface that are then…dropped. Then the show ends. Maybe most unforgivable for a show by and about the hilarious Sarah Silverman, it isn’t even really funny. Maybe a chuckle here and there, but the main character isn’t funny. She never gives any sense of becoming the comedian Sarah Silverman, even though the first image we see as we enter is a microphone in a spotlight. None of that becoming Sarah is really seen. She is described as being depressed, with a problem we’re all sure she’ll grow out of. So the stakes are kind of non-existent throughout. Much of the score (other than a cute finale) was that kind of non-melodic non-song that I associate with bad NYMF shows. The cast was fine, including Broadway names like Shoshana Bean, Liz Larsen, and Alyssa Umphress. They just don’t have much to play other than static states of being. I saw two musicals in DC this weekend. “Schmigadoon!” was pretty adorable, and I had only minor quibbles. Its structure is sound; it has good bones. “The Bedwetter” seems to have very little skeleton at all, unfortunately. |
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