For 3rd Date, a Trip to an Abortion Clinic ‘Phoenix,’ Starring Julia Stiles, at the Cherry Lane Theater
Alexis SoloskiAugust 7, 2014: When Scott Organ’s Phoenix begins, Bruce and Sue are on their second date. It isn’t going well. “I can’t see you anymore,” Sue says. She makes this declaration after she’s rated their drunken night together “better than most,” but before she’s revealed that a faulty condom has left her pregnant, and that she intends to terminate the pregnancy. Ah, young love. Unlikely as it seems, Mr. Organ’s play is more or less a romance, a more mannerly and somewhat less likely counterpart to the recent movie comedy Obvious Child. First seen at the Humana Festival in 2010, Phoenix is being revived by Rattlestick Theater and a few other producers at the Cherry Lane. Julia Stiles plays Sue, a visiting nurse with defense mechanisms sturdy enough to repel a Mongol horde. Yet she can’t seem to deter Bruce (James Wirt). He insists on tagging along to the abortion, gassing up his Taurus when she tells him she’s chosen a clinic in Phoenix. Even Bruce is moved to joke about restraining orders. Like many of Mr. Organ’s jokes, it’s only sort of funny.
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