BILLY  AND  RAY   at the Vineyard  Theatre

(Seen November, 2014)


This play illuminates a beginning chapter in the collaborative life of Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler as they embark on a successful film partnership.  

Director Garry Marshall has his small cast working at a frenzy, as if this was a  '30s  'B'  movie --- full of their hype and style and stereotype.   And he has them all do repetitive actions as if there was some meaning to these actions!  Among the strange actions, his various characters are endlessly adjusting the blinds in the room --- as if it were significant!

Although he strives for the ambiance of a Wilder movie, he only gets a staccato race through the situation.  Even the fine work of Larry Pine as Chandler is lost in the sought-for Wilder style.