REVIEW: CPP'S TEDIOUS "SIDEWAYS" MADE ME THIRSTY FOR MORE THAN WINE

 

By Ruth Ross

If you love wine—especially pinot noir—you’re gonna love Sideways, the Chatham Community Player’s inaugural production of the 2024-2025 season.

Unfortunately, you won’t get to taste any pinot noir; you’ll just hear about it, incessantly, for 2.5 hours!

Based on the 2005 film and penned by the screenplay’s author, Rex Pickett, this rendition of Sideways recounts a week-long road trip taken by two middle-aged male friends to the Santa Ynez Valley, California, the week before one’s upcoming nuptials. Miles, whose novel has finally been accepted for publication after 65 rejections, expects to play a lot of golf and sample pinot noir at various vineyards. His failed Hollywood actor friend Jack, reduced to doing voiceovers and directing television shows, only wants to get laid before he gets hitched. (Above L-R: Emily Miller, Lonny K. Friedman, Andrew Froehlich and Katy Cockrell)

Despite fine acting, the problem with this production is that neither of the male protagonists comes across as likeable. Part of this is the fault of the script: The incessant dissection of the wine’s “notes” by one character, Miles Raymond (a sad sack of the first order Andrew Froehlich), is tedious and pretentious, especially when paired with the single-minded sexuality of his friend Jack (a revved up, excitable Lonny K. Friedman). In addition, the play’s dramatic arc is often broken by a multitude of scene changes; while performed smoothly and quickly by the stage crew, they tended to stop the action, even for a minute or two, thus adding to the runtime and making me check my watch during each act as my rear end grew numb.

The acting situation occurs because Director Christopher Peterson fails to elicit sympathetic performances from his protagonists. Yes, Miles is depressed by his divorce and lack of writing success, and yes, he’s a wine nut, but his character never engaged my interest. His constant quoting of authors he’s read (Virginia Woolff and H.L. Mencken, for instance), grandiloquently uttering “pinot noir” and holding his wine glass to the light, swirling its contents and sniffing the contents before drinking made me think, “Knock it off already!”
 

Friedman’s Jack (left, with Miller)is equally annoying as, hormones raging, he hops around the stage in mad pursuit of Terra, a waitress he’s met at a local tasting room. Played by a vivacious Emily Miller, she gets a great scene when she discovers the truth and lets Jack have it! Jack even engineers a hookup between Miles and Maya (Katy Cockrell), a mature, thoughtful vineyard employee he already knows, a move not appreciated by Miles when he finds out. Katy’s Maya comes across as a woman wounded by her academic husband’s infidelity and in need of some sympathy and intimacy. She even tries to impress Miles by announcing she’d read all the works by Carl Jung (ugh!) on his recommendation!

Alan Ellis, Jodi Freeman Malloy and Missy Renwick do fine work in supporting roles. Ellis is especially funny as Chris, a boar hunter (right) who takes Miles on a nocturnal jaunt. As Miles’ mother Phyllis, Malloy’s delight when he comes to visit her for her birthday is palpable, making his subsequent stealing money from her even more disappointing.

Perhaps the most grating part of Pickett’s script is the excessive use of four-letter words. Now, I am not a prude and realize that this is the way guys talk to each other, but its abundance was cringe-worthy at times.

Production values were uniformly high. Once again, designer Roy Pancirov and scenic artists Dean Sickler and Gordon Weiner have created a set appropriate to a wine country hotel, various tasting bars and even a hot tub! Carol Petersen Saso’s props, Beth Amiano Gleason’s costume design, and  projections/sound designed by Joe DeVico transport us to the Santa Ynez Valley of 1999. Andrew Blais’s lighting design showed the passage of time; pop music from the 1990s chosen by Peterson heightened the effect even further.

Just as not all novels or plays translate well into other media, the screenplay of Sideways isn’t successful as a stage production. Perhaps the screen gives the audience some distance from the characters, and editing can make them more likeable and sympathetic, but in the flesh, the result is quite different. If you like talking about wine—pinot noir, not MERLOT, according to Miles—you will find Sideways entertaining. I found it tedious.

Sideways will be performed at the Chatham Playhouse, 23 N. Passaic Ave., Chatham, through October 5^th. For information and tickets, call the box office at 973.635.7363 or visit www.chathamplayers.org online.