ELLING A REVIEW

While it was not too well recieved and has already posted it's closing notice, I found "ELLING" to be a light, funny and sometimes touching comedy about life,love, friendship and survival. In a friendlier Broadway climate it might have had a better fate commercially.
This comedy started out as two bestselling novels first published in Norway a couple of years ago. It was then adapted into a successful film and stage play in it's homeland.
It is the stage version that was adapted into English by Simon Bent and successfully done in England that is now on Broadway. It is a lightweight but sweet tale of two longtime patients of a mental hospital trying to adjust to life in the outside world, and in these roles both Denis O'Hare and Brendan Fraser could not be bettered. Mr. O'Hare is especially noteworthy as a little man who never got over his mother's death , and Mr Fraser is just as good as a childlike 40 year old eager to lose his virginity.
The rest of the cast [ Jennifer Coolidge, Richard Easton, and Jeremy Shamos] are first rate, and Doug Hughs's stage direction is everything it should be.
The play is also helped by Scott Pask's witty sets, Catherine Zuber's just right costumes, and Kenneth Posner's first rate lighting.
To be sure "ELLING" is not a work of art or even a first rate comedy, but this longtime theatregoer found it charming and sometimes sweetly touching. Too bad more people won't get to see it.
At THE ETHEL BARRYMORE THEATRE 243 WEST 47th STREET N.Y.C.

Note- The play closed after only nine performances.