Great Performances Bring LEFT ON TENTH To Broadway — Review

Delia Ephron is not the type to sit around or stay idle. Certainly not as embodied by a spirited, effervescent Julianna Marguiles, whose energetic portrayal of the famed screenwriter and novelist injects some desperately needed life into Ephron’s mostly inert stage adaptation of her memoir Left on Tenth. 

Yet the play only finds a hint of potency when Ephron slows down, takes a breath, and lets her play linger in a moment. That happens just once in Susan Stroman’s largely lifeless production, which opened tonight at the James Earl Jones Theatre. 

Left on Tenth slows only for Ephron’s lengthy, agonizing hospital stay following a cancer diagnosis. Before this tough turn the play has breezed happily through Ephron’s whirlwind romance with fellow widower Peter Rutter (Peter Gallagher), jumping right from email flirtation, into early dates, then swiftly onto international travel. It’s all good news—Peter is a great guy, Delia is happy, the world makes sense. But since Ephron never lets a single scene breathe, it’s also weightless, meaningless. Who exactly is Peter? What connects the pair so deeply? What do they talk about? We get maybe one minute’s worth of attention to each of these central, fundamental questions as Ephron hastily pushes forward. 

What little we do learn comes in the form of a stilted direct address from Ephron and Rutter, bravely delivered by the very game Marguiles and Gallagher. Both are warm, likable performers, and both do their very best to make these monologues sound natural. But it's hard not to feel like Ephron had copy/pasted a first-person memoir into monologue format and called it a play. There is no tension at play, nor anything visually stimulating for Stroman to latch onto.

Ephron’s cancer journey then proves a relief because, for the first time, Ephron shows rather than tells. The harrowing intensity of the treatment regimen is felt in Marguiles’ powerful performance, as is the force of Peter’s unflagging love for her as he remains, loyally, by her side throughout. Tested to the limits, Peter refuses to give up on Ephron, and that abiding connection helps her to push through—to survive. 

Of course, agonizing cancer treatment isn’t really supposed to be the highlight here. Wasn’t this a romantic comedy? Despite her deep love of the genre (and her co-writing credit on a rom-com masterpiece, You’ve Got Mail), Ephron shows no facility for great rom-com writing here. Outside of Ephron’s cancer battle, she and Rutter never face an interpersonal challenge or moment of disagreement. They never fight. No-one disapproves of their partnership. Everything is just…great. Thrilling stuff. 

Very occasionally, in a throwaway line here or there, Ephron suggests a darker sense of humor lurking underneath all of this bland happy-smiley. “We’re not getting married right away,” she jokes early in the courtship, batting down Peter’s swift obsession with an affectionate barb. A better, very slightly darker version of Left on Tenth lives just underneath the anodyne writing. A version where perhaps Ephron’s cutting nature clashes with Rutter’s big-hearted sincerity. Or where their differing life-philosophies create just a little bit of strain. Something, anything to get the fire going. 

Left on Tenth is now in performance at the James Earl Jones Theatre in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.