Off-Broadway Review: Table 17 Presents the Anatomy of a Breakup

Breaking up is hard to do — especially when the two partners have an obvious attraction to each other, and it is not entirely clear who is at fault for the relationship’s demise. Is it the woman who cheats, or the man who neglected her until she found comfort in the arms of another? Is it the woman who expects her man to read her mind, or the man who never bothered to ask how she was feeling?

Douglas Lyons asks these questions (and surely prompts a fair amount of post-show debate) with his bittersweet new comedy Table 17, now making its world premiere at MCC Theater. Smartly written and powered by a trio of top-notch actors, it’s the first laugh-out-loud comedy of the fall season. And depending on the stability of your own relationship, it could also make for a good date night.

Framed by a reunion dinner between Jada (Kara Young) and Dallas (Biko Eisen-Martin), Table 17 presents the trajectory of their four-year relationship and eventual breakup through a series of flashbacks showing exactly how it happened. We see their meet-cute at a club, Dallas’s overly complicated marriage proposal, his dogged attempt to break into the recording industry, and, as he spends more and more time at the studio, Jada’s half-hearted attempts to rebuff the advances of an irresistibly buff colleague named Eric.

The hilarious Michael Rishawn plays Eric and every other role, juggling costumes in what is surely a backstage spectacle. A master of disguise and dialect, he is sure to have audience members checking their programs to confirm that, yes, there are only three actors in this show.

Young plays Jada with a warmth and relatable vulnerability that banishes all thought of her celebrity namesake. Half the wonder of seeing Young onstage is the way she invites the audience in by allowing us to see the performance within the performance — the little acts of everyday theater we deploy to make ourselves look cool and in control when we’re nothing of the sort.

Perhaps that is what attracted Jada to Dallas in the first place. Eisen-Martin gives us a sense of what kind of man Dallas is with his little dance at the club and the gap between how he imagines it is perceived (smooth as hell) and how it actually is (dorky as fuck). His dreams are big and his disappointments crushing — but he is genuine in everything.

While some audience members at the performance I attended clearly took sides (judging by the responses shouted from the house), I found myself unable to choose between Jada and Dallas. It’s a tragedy all around.

Director Zhailon Levingston expertly maintains that balance, sacrificing none of the comedy that makes this 80-minute autopsy of a relationship such a delight. Devario D. Simmons clearly had a ball designing the costumes, the urban armor we don before going into battle. Ben Stanton’s sharp lighting design facilitates the flashbacks and quick asides that make this play magical. And sound designer Christopher Darbassie offers a running commentary on the proceedings with his well-selected soundtrack. It all plays out on Jason Sherwood’s set, which transforms the black box theater into a restaurant, but is also versatile enough to conjure myriad other locations.

Lyons lays out the story with prosecutorial precision, yet he is clearly not interested in convicting a guilty party. Surprisingly realistic considering the abundance of over-the-top comic beats, Table 17 depicts a relationship thwarted by circumstance, but also a mutual lack of effort to overcome those hurdles — which is how it often is. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to get a do-over, but it is rarely like it is in The Notebook.