Off Broadway Review: ‘The Village Bike’ Starring Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig, indie pinup girl for Frances Ha, proves stageworthy playing a sexually needy woman in The Village Bike. In this dark domestic dramedy, which preemed at the Royal Court in 2011, Brit scribe Penelope Skinner tackles some hot topics, from the addictive nature of pornography to female rape fantasies. But there’s no consistency to the scribe’s dramatic voice, which veers from the realistic to the ridiculous in the mouths of characters who don’t talk the same language — and don’t even seem to inhabit the same play. Skinner’s one clever idea was to switch the conventionally clichéd roles of young marrieds expecting their first child. Here, it’s John (Jason Butler Harner), not Becky (Gerwig), who gets the nesting urge. He’s the one who decorates the nursery, assembles crib toys, researches nutritional food sources and hangs on every thump of the dear little fetus’ heartbeat. Playing the part normally assigned to horny husbands, Becky would be happy with less baby talk and more sex.