Gene Abravaya has written, directed, and even plays a minor role in a play about the last days on camera of a famous soap opera star. THE FINAL SCENE, now playing at Thick House in SF, starts with a serious monologue played with easy realism by one of my favorites, Michael Ray Wisely. It then builds with good natured quips, the kind of banter that in good comedies builds to some big laugh lines. Those big laugh lines never materialize, and after a while the audience grows less responsive. The actors start out with believable behavioral acting, but even that starts to slip late in the first act, when they begin to push as the material grows thin. There is some physical comedy—one of those farcical chase scenes with mayhem in mind—that is staged so lamely as to pop the bubble of credulity and make you want to look away. The climax of the first act—a punch—is phony, and everything sags after that. Into the second act, the tone grows bickeringly contentious, resolves into recriminations, then wanes into a soliloquy of maudlin reverie.
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