The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Tawni O’Dell’s Pay the Writer

By Dennis W.

The world premiere of Pay the Writer by New York Times bestselling author Tawni O’Dell is playing Off-Broadway at The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center. Coincidentally it coincides with the current Writers Guild of America’s strike against television and movie producers looking for better pay.

Pay the Writer explores the complicated relationship between a successful literary agent Bruston Fisher, portrayed by Bryan Batt (”Mad Men,” “12 Years a Slave”, “Jeffrey”), and his client, a world-famous writer Cyrus Holt, played by Ron Canada (“Network”, “Wedding Crashers”, “The West Wing”). Self-center Holt lived a hard life carousing, drinking, and womanizing. Fisher has always been around to pick up the pieces as Holt alienated his ex-wife and children.

The play begins with Holt reminiscing about his life. We will soon find out that he is terminally ill. His agent Fisher is with him as always. They are best friends but no one is sure they know it. Bruston Fisher (Batt} is the narrator and the character who keeps the story moving. It’s not an easy job given the seemingly disparate storylines that he’s so desperately trying to connect. His performance is uneven but shines in scenes with Holt’s ex-wife. Fisher is also the keeper, fixer, and friend of Cyrus Holt (Canada) the egotistical writer whose only aim in life is to keep the party going. Holt as a dying man has no real lows and Canada’s performance seemed scattered. The closest we get to see an actual relationship building and progressing is the scene in Los Angeles when Holt agrees to write a screenplay and wants out of the project. But this is a glimpse that sits alone in the storyline.

Ex-wife Lana Holt, portrayed by Marcia Cross (“Desperate Housewives”, Melrose Place”) is clued in about Holt’s illness by Fisher and arrives after not seeing Holt for 20 years. Cross shines in the production and her performance is defined and deliberate. Cross knows where she fits in and it shows in her scenes.

Unfortunately, writer Tawni O’Dell’s story is disjointed and sometimes strays far and wide from building that needed relationship between Fisher and Holt. She also brings in other characters who don’t help us understand the complicated relationship between the two men. Direction by Karen Carpenter (Love, Loss, and What I Wore) is sadly flat, partially because the minimal set design by David Gallo (Broadway’s Jitney) often leaves the cast to occupy only a long narrow stage in front of a screen.

Pay the Writer seems to wander around in that space, as it attempts to build a relationship between an agent and author but loses its way, zigzagging between extraneous characters in a flat narrow space. O’Dell relies on the ending to put this jigsaw puzzle together. But unfortunately for all, we only find the missing pieces, not the puzzle’s main picture.