THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE A REVIEW

Lack of communication is the main theme of Julia Cho's unfocused and unsatisfying .new comedy "THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE". It's one thing for the characters not being able to relate to each other, but quite something else when the playwright fails to plug in to her audience.
Ms. Cho's play concerns a linguist who is proficiant in many languages but is unable to communicate his true feelings to his wife who winds up walking out on him. At the same time the linguist's cute female assistant is madly in love with him but can't convey her true feelings either.
It's a solid basis for an off-beat funny comedy but humor is mostly absent and Ms. Cho's characters are not the type of people you would want to spend an evening with.
Under Mark Brokaw's unsteady stage direction the cast does it's best and Matt Letscher almost is able to make the linguist into a likeable human being instead of the bore that he is,and Heidi Shreck and Betty Gilpin are competant enough as his wife and assistant respectivly. The real shame is that the talented Jane Houdyshell and John Horton are wasted in multiple roles that do nothing but slow up an already draggy play, and the set design by the normally unfailing Neil Patel is lacking in mood and style.
As already mentioned, lack of communication is a sound dramatic base, but "THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE'S" failure to communicate with it's audience make for a flat and unprofitable evening.
AT THE LAURA PELS THEATRE 111 WEST 46th STREET N.Y.C. THRU DEC.19th.