From left: Jessica Nesi as Jane and Robert Leverett as Dick are the two adult siblings visited by Cat (Casey Worthington), who wants to give them an afternoon of fun.
In Robert Leverett’s We Do the Same Thing Every Week, Dick (Leverett himself) and Jane (Jessica Nesi), the famous elementary schoolbook characters, are visited on a rainy Sunday afternoon by a strange, humanoid Cat (Casey Worthington) that is going to help them have fun—whether they want it or not.
Those two “good, adult, Christian siblings who live with our parents,” however, are not what Cat expected and are going to be a lot harder to please than in Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat, which Leverett parodies openly.
Justin Choi is Thing B (left) and Kate Budney is Thing A, Cat’s two well-meaning but not super-efficient employees.
“Unpleasantness is best avoided,” declares Dick as Cat attempts to bargain with them to let him entertain the siblings. Unbeknownst to Cat, the bargain he makes allows Dick and Jane to choose the consequence of his potential failure to entertain as “vacuum decay”—in other words, the end of the universe.
They are soon joined by Cat’s two employees: Thing A (Kate Budney) and Thing B (Justin Choi), who work tirelessly to perform comic routines that seem ill-prepared or doomed to fail.
To round out the cast of Seuss’s book, Fish (Tora Nogami Alexander) appears, here often referred to as “the Worst.” Fish is akin to the sitcom neighbor who constantly butts in with jokes.
If the goal of the show is to be funny, then it succeeds. Although there is little that connect these vignettes, Leverett’s fast-paced, quick-witted script transitions quickly from joke to joke.
In spite of their seeming indifference to the end of the world, the apathetic siblings show moments of humanity that are often silly but always relatable, such as Dick’s hatred of licked candies or Jane’s awkward reaction to being offered Thing A’s screenplay.
Cat’s inexplicable need to have Dick and Jane “do things” culminates in his slow descent into madness because his games aren’t appreciated. Thing A and B’s hilarious musical numbers always fail to impress Dick and Jane, leading the Things to hate their lives and job.
It could be that the show is trying to say something deeper about its apathetic leads: “Do you ever feel like nothing interesting will ever happen again?” Dick asks Cat when the siblings decide that they are done trying to have fun with him.
Directed by Liza Couser, the show shines when it embraces its mad ambition: in its well-made and well-performed musical numbers, hilarious bits of slapstick and situational comedy, witty dialogue, breaks of the fourth wall, even unnerving and scary moments with a robotic voice and the lower half of the siblings’ mom (like the parents in Cartoon Network’s Cow and Chicken). It all feels remarkably well-crafted and ambitious, but just shy of focused enough.
Tora Nogami Alexander (left) brings hilarious chaotic energy to Fish, referred to by the siblings as “the Worst.”
Perhaps the production is too hectic. It introduces so many concepts so quickly that there is no time to settle and truly take in what the show is trying to say. It seems like the siblings meet Cat twice, for example, with no explanation as to why they do not remember one another. At a point in the play, the universe ends, and suddenly dinosaurs come out. They fight and exchange Coca-Colas as a sign of friendship. Their appearance is followed immediately by a reboot of the first scene. But most of the show is an insane, absurd meta-narrative of odd tableaux that explore these characters and their relationship to happiness in a goofy, unhinged way.
Still, the cast is stellar. It is difficult to succeed at this sort of absurdist comedy, but Nesi particularly shines as Jane—her deadpan delivery and facial expressions are a riot. Worthington as Cat, increasingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, gives a performance full of facial tics and impeccable timing. Robert and Jessica’s musical number (“It’s Hard to Be Lonely,” with the lyric “I never feel lonely, I never feel much,” is hilarious, and Budney and Choi’s Thing A and B number is a highlight of the show.
Lucas A Degirolamo’s set and props are wonderfully cartoonish, mirroring Seuss’s strange geometrical shapes and using nothing but vivid blues and reds. They mesh perfectly with Olivia Vaughn Hern’s detailed costumes and puppet design and feel straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.
The lighting by Christopher Wong and sound by Grace Oberhofer help to elevate the insanity by making the difficult task of synching both to very precise comedic timing looks effortless.
Overall, the show is 90 minutes of absurd jokes, existential dread and meta-narrative, a kind of “Cat in the Hat gone wrong.” It is as messy as that description sounds, which is this show’s strength.
Robert Leverett’s We Do the Same Thing Every Week runs through May 17 at A.R.T./NY (502 West 53rd St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; matinees are at 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. For tickets and information, visit www.ticketleap.events/tickets/attractive-nuisance/WDTSTEW.
