ALL TELL AND NO SHOW
MAKES FOR A DULL OUTING

Jake Shore’s thriller talks itself into submission

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It’s the middle of the night when Joe (Ryan Tramont) hears pounding at his door. It’s his friend Barry (Brad Fryman), summoned in a panic because Joe claims he has just killed his wife. It’s a set-up that should be electric, or at least unsettling. Yet almost immediately, the stakes feel oddly hollow. And as the performance progresses — unfolding in increasingly repetitive flashbacks — the play reveals itself less as a thriller and more as a platform for playwright Jake Shore to deliver familiar musings about art, sex, relationships, and creative ego.

 Sophie Moshofsky
Cady McClain (foreground) and Sophie Moshofsky

We learn: Joe is wealthy, Barry is a novelist, Barry’s wife Kelly (Cady McClain) is a struggling photographer with ambitions bigger than her exhibition schedule, and Joe’s wife Anne (Sophie Moshofsky) exists mainly as a muse-or-object in the eyes of the men around her. There is talk of betrayal, violence, suicide attempts — even the bloody aftermath of a killing — yet somehow the play remains stubbornly inert.

Ryan Tramont and Brad Fryman

On paper, The Slide Is the Negative sounds like a lurid, psychological romp: murder, booze-fueled confessions, artistic jealousy spiraling into tragedy. But Shore never locates the dramatic engine beneath the ideas. The characters speak philosophy at each other rather than behave like people in crisis. Director Paul Smithyman keeps the pacing neat and the stage pictures attractive, but no amount of polish can conceal the lingering disconnect: we are told this is high-stakes melodrama, but we rarely feel anything.

Sophie Moshofsky, Brad Fryman, Cady McClain

The cast does what they can, articulating themes rather than inner lives — playing concepts instead of characters. A thriller about creators behaving badly should grip and disturb; here, it flickers briefly and fades.

Sophie Moshofsky and Ryan Tramont

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photos by John Robert Hoffman

The Slide Is the Negative
The Chain Theatre, 312 W 36th St, 4th floor
Thurs–Sat at 7:30; Sun at 2; Wed at 7:30 (Dec.17); Fri at 2 (Dec. 19)
95 minutes, no intermission
for tickets ($20-$38.50) visit JCS Theatre

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