The new dramedy “Cradle and All” relies on a promising narrative gambit: The first act takes place in the Brooklyn apartment of the stylish, childless Claire and Luke; the second act puts us next door, where Annie and Nate deal with an 11-month-old daughter who won’t stop crying.
To top it off, both couples are played by the same actors, Maria Dizzia and Greg Keller.
Effortlessly likable, they single-handedly help the show go down easy. Playwright Daniel Goldfarb should thank them for inserting life and quirky individuality into his wan look at parenthood. Sure, a lot of the dialogue rings true, but you could get the same thing eavesdropping on yuppies at a coffee joint.
Agreeably directed by Sam Buntrock — who staged the projection-heavy Broadway revival of “Sunday in the Park with George” — “Cradle” is better than Goldfarb’s last effort, the Holocaust-themed “The Retributionists.” Still, while a few lines poke mild fun at the characters’ cozy sense of entitlement, there’s not enough of them to counteract the many platitudes about parenting.
Claire, older than Luke by about half a decade, wants a child; he’s not ready; they argue. Overhearing the sobbing tyke next door doesn’t help sway Luke, who’s peeved by lax parents and their spoiled broods.
“Brooklyn Heights is becoming the Upper West Side before our very eyes!” he exclaims.
So true — if the play were set in 1975.
Nate and Annie are frazzled by their infant’s car-alarm volume, but blindly adore her anyway. “I know she’s mine — er, ours,” Annie says, “but, objectively, I really think she’s more interesting than other babies.”
The only reason you don’t want to strangle Annie is the warm presence of Dizzia, a Tony nominee last year for “In the Next Room.”
Goldfarb works in a few parallels between the show’s couples. The sentence “I will be really hurt and upset if you walk away right now” is uttered twice, with the same result. Each pairing includes an actor whose career is past its prime. The neighbors also cross paths over the borrowing of an egg.
You have to wonder what Alan Ayckbourn — the plotting genius responsible for shows such as “The Norman Conquests” and “House & Garden” — would have done with a similar concept. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with self-absorbed New Yorkers, whining and dining.
elisabeth.vincentelli
@nypost.com