The tip-off that Rajiv Joseph's All This Intimacy, now at Second Stage Uptown at the McGinn/Cazale, is going to be given a very broad treatment comes from David Newell's set design, which includes large representations of sperm on the walls and even on the stage floor. The problem isn't that the design is tasteless, but that it's so grotesquely obvious. Once the show begins, it's clear that this over-the-top approach has been taken up by director Giovanna Sardelli, who has either encouraged some of the cast to overact or simply failed to rein them in.

The piece itself has some plot contrivances, but it also displays a certain thematic unity and some very fine writing. Not that things start [...]