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Never Swim Alone

The New Yorker

swimIn Daniel MacIvor’s tersely orchestrated dark comedy, two pinstripe-wearing, briefcase carrying, cliche-claring businessmen who’ve been friends and playmates since boyhood face off as adults for twelve rounds of friendly competition (who’s taller, better at his job, better endowed, etc.). The boasts and thinly veiled insults become increasingly vicious and destructive with each round, knowingly refereed by a woman who turns out to be an early causualty of their lifelong contest, a ghost from their past. The play lacks essential narrative drama, but it’s a surprisingly powerful examination of the dangers of male rivalry, and the three very good young actors (Douglas Dickerman, John Maria, and Susan O’Connor) give it a beguiling-richness.

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