As is customary in such plays, each character has some signal, off-center trait that is worn like an ID tag, which is embellished, with variations, ad infinitum.
Tony is the epithet-slinging fabulist. Stella keeps coming up with whiny “poor me” rationalizations for her criminal acts. And Waxy is the play’s resident Ms. Malaprop, who misquotes Shakespeare and refers to Dylan as a “child effigy.” Ms. Billings, a marvel of glamorous menace, delivers such mangling with a smooth, sinister confidence that keeps the others from laughing. Not us, though.
Ms. Lind — who has appeared as a docile Shakespearean heroine in Public Theater productions — shows a wicked comic wit here as a badge-toting femme fatale. And as the bewildered straight man to everybody else, Mr. Schnetzer more than holds his own, finding intriguing ambivalence within Dylan’s virtuous persona and also proving himself a dab hand at snooker.
The cast members shape their characters with just enough comic exaggeration to stay credible and also to suggest that not everyone is what she or he seems. For “The Nap” is also a comedy of deception, including self-deception, and the sort of willful, hilarious misunderstandings that have always been a basis for slapstick. (In this case, they include not one but two anarchic variations of movie-title guessing games.)
The play’s second, shorter act, in which all is revealed, isn’t as satisfying as the first, and it rushes its final moments into anticlimax. On the other hand, where else are you going to be able to watch a live snooker game (with video simulcast) in which you feel so personally invested?
That’s when Dylan faces off against two champions (both played by the real snooker ace Ahmed Aly Elsayed), in matches described by two unseen commentators. With their time-filling, vacuous babble, these voices will be familiar to anyone who follows sports on television. And just in case snooker still confuses you, these announcers keep explaining its rules, with priceless condescension, to unenlightened listeners.
They include those who might be “on the internet in Antarctica” or “on a canoe in Tahiti.” Those at the Friedman Theater, however, know that no matter how the match ends, this gratifyingly silly show has — now, what’s the term? — potted all its balls.
