TACT bets on a revival of this Depression-era comedy about horse racing.
Three Men on a Horse
Time Out/ New York
Pamela Newton
March 29, 2011
Before there were sitcoms, there were plays with the same lowbrow comic formula: a far-fetched premise, snappy one-liners, misunderstandings with outrageous consequences, and an impossibly neat happy ending where everybody wins. Three Men on a Horse, a Broadway hit from 1935, was originally an escapist fantasy for those depressed by the Depression, and is now a bit of old-fashioned fun for those feeling recessed by the recession. Much of the power it once had to uplift and delight, however, has gone the way of garter belts. In this revival by the Actors Company Theatre, it is somewhere between a quaint relic and a snoozer.
Such middling success is not for lack of trying. As Erwin, Geoffrey Molloy makes for a loveable "worm," a spineless greeting-card writer whose uncanny knack for picking winning horses inadvertently lands him in the eye of a greed storm. The rest of the ensemble pulls its weight as a motley crew all trying to use Erwin for their own ends. The characters are types, but the actors infuse them with enough humanity to make us care -- a little. A few physical gags are welcome for their pure silliness, such as one where a gaggle of gamblers in a hotel room tries to re-create the conditions on a public bus (Erwin chooses horses on his commute to work). Nonetheless, guffaws from the house are few and far between. TACT is admirably committed to rescuing neglected plays, but it’s risky to bet on a long shot, and sometimes the odds are stacked against you.