Review: In "Skintight," Rich People Grasp for Beauty

There's only one perfect moment in Joshua Harmon's "Skintight," now Off Broadway at Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre, but it's a doozy. 

The play is about a middle-aged woman (Idina Menzel) who runs to her wealthy father for solace after her husband leaves her for a 24 year old. She's looking forward to celebrating her father's 70th birthday weekend, but when she arrives, talking a mile a minute, she learns that her dad is dating someone, too — and that someone is 20 years old, the same age as her son.

This makes Jodi furious, mostly because the divorce has made her insecure. Self-involved and with a mean streak, she is determined to sabotage what she sees as an inappropriate relationship. She was fine with her father, a millionaire clothing designer along the lines of Calvin Klein, having a revolving stable of younger men. But Trey (Will Brittain) has moved in, calls her dad his partner and orders the household staff around — and for her, that's too much.

That best scene comes the first evening, after her son Benjamin (a perfectly awkward Eli Gelb) arrives. Jodi and her father Elliott have gone up to bed. The handsome Trey is sitting bare-chested on the couch next to Benjamin. Trey grew up poor but is now wearing a half-million-dollar Rolex, thanks to his lover; Benjamin is a trust-fund baby taking queer studies classes. A few moments ago, Benjamin and Trey had been joking around, as 20-year-olds do, sharing war stories. But now, Benjamin reaches over to make a move.

Both young men are silent, but so many feelings flash across Trey's face as he stares straight ahead: surprise, curiosity, discomfort, and then, a kind of defeated resignation. After all, Trey had already given over control of his own life to Elliot, simply because he's rich and powerful. What's one more humiliation, if it gets him the life he wants?

This complicated, distressing moment is a window into what this play could have been: a look at the ways we sacrifice ourselves and those we love for wealth or sex or other desires that seem so vital in the moment. Instead, it's a sleek urban comedy about reprehensible people with a more simplistic message: beauty buys you stuff. The play is agnostic about whether that's a good thing. 

Meanwhile, the family does what they wish. They snipe at each other. They undercut each other. They are rude and dismissive toward their staff. They take every opportunity they can to be unkind.

If the comedy was funnier, or the characters had redeemable qualities, or the play felt like it was going somewhere, then all of this unpleasantness wouldn't matter as much. But it does. Much of the first act is entertaining. But more than two hours is too much with these deeply unlikable people. 

Skintight by Joshua Harmon, directed by Daniel Aukin; at Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre through August 26, 2018.