“It’s funny how much 1988 looks like 2008,” said my theater companion as the lights went up on the Second Stage Theatre’s off-Broadway revival of Howard Korder’s Boys’ Life. Indeed, if it weren’t for the massive numbers that appear on the set at the beginning, one might not notice that Korder’s play about three post-college guys making their way in “A Large City, 1988” isn’t actually a play about three post-college guys making their way in New York City, 2008.
Sure, Phil (played here by Jason Biggs, of American Pie fame) listens to music from a cassette player and not an iPod, but the boxy and stackable Swedish furniture in Don’s (Peter Scanavino) dorm-like apartment is all too familiar—as are the many joints consumed by Jack (Rhys Coiro), and as are the drop-waist dresses and bright leggings worn by their female companions. Familiar, too, is their exhaustive existential angst. As Jack says at one point, they are “the story of a generation who had it all and didn’t know what to do with it.”
Maybe that’s the reason director Michael Grief chose to revive Korder’s play, which was a 1988 Pulitzer Prize finalist, though perhaps he should have gone with the winner. Watching Korder’s play is a bit like watching three drunk and stoned buddies trying to find the meaning of life in their East Campus townhouse at 4 a.m. Korder’s characters spin around in circles without going anywhere, not unlike Mark Wendland’s gurney-esque set pieces, which the characters and technicians maneuver about in scene changes as the Talking Heads’ emblematic “Once in a Lifetime” blares.
There’s the hopelessly dependent and desperate Phil, a character right up Biggs’ alley with his awkwardness and two-dimensionality. Then there’s Don, the eternal people-pleaser who can’t seem to figure out how to live for himself, and whose best act of “people-pleasing” comes in the form of brief full-frontal nudity. And finally, there’s Jack, who berates the other two, cares little for his wife or young son, and thrives on bullshit and manipulation. In Korder’s world, these traits make him inexplicably appealing to others.
Their girlfriends and mistresses, who may as well all be the same, shrill city girl, are even worse. “I hate myself so much,” wails Karen, “I’m not worth it.” “This isn’t high school. I’m not worth it,” snaps Lisa, while Maggie introspectively claims: “I don’t want to help other people. I say I do, but I don’t. I just want them to go away.”
All this is not to say that the issues Korder attempts to address aren’t provocative or fit for drama. Modernist playwrights of the 1950s and ’60s, particularly Samuel Beckett and other Absurdists, treated the meaningless nature of existence in innovative and profound ways. While this may not be high school—or, for that matter, college—it certainly feels like it. Jack’s repeated insistence that, “It doesn’t matter; there’s nobody there” brings us back to questions that may never go out of date, but are in this play handled both lamely and immaturely. You’d find better (or at least less expensive) answers from those buddies in the EC townhouse.