Tape - Stephen Belber

New York, Jose Quintero Theatre
(run over)
San Francisco, Magic Theatre
April 19 - May 12
Los Angeles, Court Theatre
through May 11

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Photo from premiere production of Tape
Actors' Theatre, Louisville

Our review of the film based on Tape

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    Tape started as an off-off-Broadway play in Access Theater's fifth-floor walkup black box. Then Ethan Hawke picked it up to do as a movie. Now the play is reincarnated off-Broadway.
    Perhaps the movie works better. As a play, Tape has real problems. First is the "who cares?" issue. Neither of the two main characters are appealing or easy for an audience to identify with. They are two guys who went to high school together ten years before the play starts, and they are both largely stuck in a high school mentality. Vince is now a drug dealer, apparently specializing in servicing the guys in his volunteer fire fighters group back home in California. He is one of life's lovers, without wheels and clueless.
    Jon is a film maker who has just reached the heights of having his first and only film shown in the afternoon at a festival in Lansing, Michigan. Ten years back, in senior high school right there in Lansing, Vince lost his girl friend Amy to Jon. Vince can't get over it, and he's come to Lansing ostensibly to support Jon, but really to confront him about this dastardly girlfriend theft. They sport around, slapping each other on the back, tipping back brews and smoking a little dope, and calling each other man and dude. Then Vince reveals his agenda: he accuses Jon of date rape of his old girlfriend.
    And, amazingly, that old girl friend Amy, played by Alison West, is now an assistant district attorney right there in Lansing. Guess what, she's on her way over to have a bite to eat with old boyfriend Vince, but really to play out a clumsily introduced obligatory scene. Each of the three, it turns out, have wildly differing views of what really happened that drunken night of the fateful party and possible date rape.
    It's all both predictable and unbelievable (not a good combination) from here on out. The characters are not ones an audience that is beyond petulant high school obsessions can care much about. The plot disintegrates into an absolutely ridiculous old fashioned Hollywood ending. It's about as convincing as watching a leopard change its spots or a zebra its stripes.
    The acting is, however, for the most part better than the play. Dominic Fumusa, who very recently provided one-third of the top-notch ensemble in [sic] at Soho Rep, plays Vince. It's fascinating to see an actor of his skill in two very different roles in the space of a few weeks, and Fumusa has the magic of making himself look and sound differently, to metamorphose into another extremely different character. His portrayal of Vince is complex, part the clueless, emotionally disabled loser, and part successfully manipulative and hair-trigger dangerous. He is a bad-boy who can't be quite as bad as he wants to be.
    Josh Stamberg, as Jon, the aspiring film maker must play a transition from confidently superior to weak and browbeaten as Vince verbally and physically pummels him into admitting to the date rape of Amy that he's not really sure happened. He makes each step of the process clear and convincing. Alison West, as Amy, in her New York debut, is not yet ready for off-Broadway. She is weak vocally, and seems not at all comfortable occupying the space of her own body on stage. Playing against two strong actors painfully emphasizes her weakness.