‘Fish in the Dark’ Theater review by David Cote

Checking out Larry David’s debut as a Broadway playwright and performer, I did not expect to be thinking of ancient Greek tragedy. Comedy, sure, but I figured past influences would stretch back to Allen, not Aeschylus. And yet here’s kvetchy urinal salesman Norman Drexel (David), bolting onstage after seeing his mother unconscious and naked in her bedroom, performing mute spasms of Oedipal horror—face a gaping mask of shock, arms sawing the air in crazy, rigid patterns. Such ritual gestures would fit Athens circa 403 BCE, although I don’t think any Attic bard ever penned the plangent cry “You fucked my mother?!?” “Fish in the Dark” may be new, but its comic ingredients are classically aged: horny, old ladies, greedy relatives, philandering dads, luscious blonds and preposterous deceptions. The DNA has been passed down from Aristophanes to Plautus, Wycherley and sex farces popular on Broadway in the ’60s. David’s contribution is mainly to be himself, the Everyputz he played on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”: cheerfully cynical, blithely petty and amazed that anyone should be offended by his honesty.