A lot of eating takes place in the new Broadway comedy “Dead Accounts,” but there’s little for the audience to chew on. While the producers were busy signing up Katie Holmes and Norbert Leo Butz, playwright Theresa Rebeck forgot to write a show.
Rebeck (“Seminar,” TV’s “Smash”) is nothing if not a pro, and it’s hard to believe she thought her effort was finished. With its cardboard characters and implausible developments, “Dead Accounts” feels like a rough first draft.
What does come through loud and clear is the sound of Butz’s jaws working overtime as he chomps on large quantities of food, along with the scenery.
The Tony-winning star of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and “Catch Me If You Can” should be declared a Broadway Treasure: Holmes may be the name luring ticket buyers, but it’s Butz who makes sure they get their money’s worth.
Here he plays Jack, a flashy mucky-muck who has returned unannounced to his family’s Cincinnati home. Jack has been living in New York for a while, and spits out glib one-liners about the Big Apple versus the Heartland as he binges on Graeter’s ice cream, cheese Coneys and pizza.
Too much is never enough for this high-flier, who bribes an employee $1,000 to keep his ice-cream store open after-hours. “The free market is a beautiful thing,” Jack crows.
“That’s not the free market,” his uptight sister Lorna (Holmes) shoots back. “That’s stealing.”
Lorna’s still living at home with their parents, though we see only Mom, Barbara (Jayne Houdyshell). Dad, Jack and Lorna’s four other siblings are unseen — guess the casting budget got tight.
Houdyshell (“Follies”) is affecting as a put-upon mother. Josh Hamilton nails the placidity of Jack’s school friend, Phil, who’s sweet on Lorna — though you’re not sure whether Phil’s really nice or really dumb. Both do their honorable best with underwritten characters.
Holmes, on the other hand, doesn’t have similar stage chops to fall back on. She’s got one note — shrill, impatient — and yells it at top volume, making a vein bulge on her slender neck. (A recurring joke about Lorna going on a diet falls flat.)
You wish director Jack O’Brien had told his star to tone it down a notch, but he seems to have just leaned back and prayed for the best.
Comic timing usually isn’t an issue for the excellent Judy Greer (“Arrested Development”), who plays Jack’s ice-queen wife, Jenny. But she has little to work with, other than a tirade in which Jenny mocks Barbara’s house with clichés: “There are little ceramic plates on the walls with pictures painted on them; I’m not making this up.”
Rebeck tries to introduce some gravity by bringing up faith, ethics and the mortgage crisis, but the effort feels half-baked.
At least Butz goes all-out in a bravura performance seasoned with urgent desperation — at Jack’s plight, but also maybe at the play itself.