Broadway Review: Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Sea Wall/A Life’

Comfy? Okay, let’s talk Death: sudden death, painful death, lingering death, accidental death, and whatever other kinds of death happen to come into the receptive minds of playwrights Simon Stephens (“Sea Wall”) and Nick Payne (“A Life”). The writing in these separate monologues — playing together on a double bill at Broadway’s intimate Hudson Theatre — is excellent, as are the solo performances by Tom Sturridge (“Sea Wall”) and Jake Gyllenhaal (“A Life”). But this is no show to see on a first date. Both plays take place on the same stone-cold set — two levels of solid brick walls — designed by Laura Jelinek and lighted with beautiful bleakness by Guy Hoare. The rest is left to the imagination in this stark production directed by Carrie Cracknell.