‘Sea Wall/A Life’ Broadway Review: Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge Go Solo Together

Nick Payne and Simon Stephens do their respective one-act monologues no favors by putting them together on a double bill. Even the starry solo turns of Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge can’t relieve the monotony of seeing Stephens’ “Sea Wall” and Payne’s “A Life” back to back with an intermission. The revival of these two plays opened Thursday at the Hudson Theatre after a recent engagement at the Public Theater. Very distant are the days when playwrights, like Edward Albee, routinely paired substantial one-act plays, like “The American Dream” and “The Zoo Story.” Nowadays, audiences are content to see a 70- or even 60-minute play and call it a night at the theater. More important, Albee offered something that’s sadly lacking with the Stephens/Payne coupling: variety. Also Read: 'Mies Julie' Theater Review: August Strindberg Tragedy Reimagined in South Africa Since “Sea Wall” had its debut in 2008 and “A Life” (formerly burdened with the title “The Art of Dying”) followed six years later, Stephens can be said to have gotten there first to write a monologue about death in which the man’s grief is so overwhelming that he can’t cogently tell us the story of what happened. Yes, in his monologue,...

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