"Privilege" by Gordon Cox ~ New York Newsday 04.26.05
Gifted Youths Save Dad, and a Bankrupt Script in "Privilege"
A talented adolescent actor is a rare find, but somehow Second Stage Theatre has managed to find not one but two of them to star in its latest production, "Privilege." Harry Zittel and Conor Donovan, one on each side of puberty, hold our attention even when Paul Weitz's trite new play does not.
Set in 1987, "Privilege" chronicles the fallout in the lives of two brothers when their father is arrested for insider trading. Once the government freezes their father's considerable assets, the kids aren't so privileged anymore, and they go from complaining about frequent trips to Antigua to sharing a cramped bedroom with peeling paint.
As Porter, the 16-year-old with a taste for Jimi Hendrix and the Dead Kennedys, Zittel cycles through good humor, petulance, enthusiasm, apathy, cockiness and self-doubt with a fluid ease that would surely elude an older actor in the same role. He even plays drunk without overdoing it. As 12-year-old Charlie, buttoned-up Conor Donovan is good enough to make you wish that his precocious character weren't overwritten into a grammar-correcting Alex P. Keaton.
Bob Saget, best known from the sitcom "Full House," co-stars as Ted, the head of the family. With big glasses and a severe part in his hair, he's a constricted and businesslike father before the financial crisis inevitably makes him see the importance of family. Carolyn McCormick plays the wife and mother with wounded pride, and Florencia Lozano models an array of unattractive '80s hairstyles as the maid.
Saget seems stilted as the play progresses, but that's probably the fault of Weitz, the filmmaker who wrote and co-directed "About a Boy" and co-directed "American Pie." In Weitz's unimaginative script, Ted fondly recalls a vacation during which he threw a ball with his boys until his shoulder hurt, and Porter thanks him. In what passes for sentimental closure, Ted responds, "Don't thank me. Thank you."
Director Peter Askin, most often seen on Broadway helming solo shows by Eve Ensler and John Leguizamo, has an obvious affinity for his young actors, but he can't counteract the staginess of the play's climactic confrontation scene.
Costume designer Jeff Mahshie resists overplaying the '80s fashion card, opting for realism over comedy. Set designer Thomas Lynch replicates a rich kid's bedroom that we don't realize is so spacious until he contrasts it with the smaller, crumbling room the boys inhabit in the second act.
As they move from a big room to a little one, our two young protagonists make a predictable journey: They joke about flatulence, they wrestle with the enigma of girls, they fight, they make up. Zittel and Donovan ensure that we care about the trip, even if Weitz's version of it is entirely unsurprising.