You’d think Julia Stiles would know better after all those movies, from “Save the Last Dance” to the Bourne trilogy. She even held up her own opposite Bill Pullman in Broadway’s “Oleanna.”
Yet here she is in “Phoenix,” looking mighty uncomfortable in a bad play that’s just as poorly staged and even more horrifyingly costumed. That Stiles agreed to be seen in Amit Gajwani’s ’80s-style, too-short harem pants and shapeless blue dress is downright baffling.
Those are only some of the hurdles Stiles faces in Scott Organ’s play, an attempt at edgy rom-com that needs all the help it can get.
It certainly isn’t enhanced by the zero chemistry between its stars, which is problematic when you’re dealing with, you know, romance.
New Yorkers Sue (Stiles) and Bruce (James Wirt) meet for drinks a month after their one-night stand. They haven’t seen each other since, and there’s a major development: She’s pregnant.
The rest of the show, ploddingly directed by Jennifer DeLia, consists of an interminable push-and-pull as we watch the inevitable happen in banter-filled slo-mo.
Sketchily described, the characters are out of central casting. Sue is a high-strung traveling nurse while Bruce is . . . something or other that leaves him enough time to cook casseroles during the day. That and the fact he’s given all the fun lines make it clear enough he’s the cool one.
Sue, on the other hand, is the kind of sharp-tongued woman who’s afraid to love because she doesn’t want to get hurt. This is no interpretation, by the way: The playwright spells everything out, having Sue tell Bruce that she’s “trying to save both of us from having to go through the annoyance and potential pain of an inevitably doomed relationship.”
The show is at its most honest in dealing with Sue’s plan to get an abortion while on assignment in Phoenix. Up until the very end, we don’t know if she’ll go through with it.
All told, “Phoenix” boils down to the eternal question: Will our heroine learn to love again? Stay tuned. Or in this case, don’t.