Credulity is strained mightily in The Gift, Joanna Murray-Smith's 90-minute comedy about two dissimilar couples forming an odd emotional bond. Smith, an Australian playwright whose work has been done before at the Geffen (The Female of the Species),investigates how a single accidental moment -- the sinking of a small boat -- manages to transform all four lives in a twinkling.
We meet Sadie (Kathy Baker) and Ed (Chris Mulkey), well-heeled Americans celebrating their 25th anniversary at a "luxury tropical resort." Out of boredom, they befriend a youthful and attractive couple, Martin (James Van Der Beek) and Chloe (Jaimie Ray Newman), who have won their vacation stay in a raffle.
Ed and Sadie are solidly bourgeois and philistine; Martin is an artist, Chloe an arts journalist. After a boozy and satirical exchange of ideas about life, art, sex and marriage -- Smith writes cleverly in the style of Yasmina Reza -- the holiday buddies take to the ocean together. A storm blows up (stunning visual and aural effects by Derek McLane and John Gromada, repectively), Ed goes over the side and is saved from drowning by Martin. In gratitude for saving his life, Ed offers a gift of their choosing “something big” -- anything that it is in his power to give.
Flash forward one year, to Ed and Sadie's luxurious L.A. home, where the two couples, now linked to each other in friendship, meet for dinner ("I've cooked Moroccan," says the ever-trendy Sadie). Ed, still grateful to Martin for his second life, reminds him that he has to choose his gift. The couple, with much intellectualizing and explanation, come up with a suggestion that is as silly as it is shocking. Ed and Sadie, though, are obliged to treat it seriously.
Smith's sardonic take on responsibility and morality has its moments, but they simply don't add up in a significant way. The actors in The Gift are much better than the play.
