Amy Schumer, sinking her comedy chops into live theater, adds Broadway to her resume when she plays a “kind-of cannibal wife” in “Meteor Shower.”
The play — written by Steve Martin — debuted a year ago at San Diego’s Old Globe Theater and later ran at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theater.
“It follows Corky and Norm, a married couple living in Ojai, California, in 1993,” notes Huffington Post. “Schumer will play the role of Corky, who is described as having ‘a history of cannibalism (though nothing too macabre, thank heavens!)’ ― whatever that means.”
.@stevemartintogo wrote a hilarious play @MeteorShowerBwy & I get to do it w/ @KeeganMKey @LauraBenanti @AlanTudyk ???? https://t.co/i7ur9G7OnK pic.twitter.com/oJWoD0rald
— Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) August 7, 2017
A KPBS-TV clip of the San Diego production shows Corky protesting: “I am not a cannibal.” To which her husband says: “Remember, we looked it up, and it doesn’t matter if you’re actively doing it now. If you’ve done it once, you remain a cannibal.”
Variety’s review of the San Diego production said:
“There are a few instances that don’t quite jive with Martin’s jam-packed big-bang theories. (The cannibalism angle early on certainly provokes laughs, but makes more sense in the second act lunacy.)”
HuffPost says “Meteor Shower” is slated to begin previews Nov. 1 and open Nov. 29 at the Booth Theater in New York.
“Things get weird when Corky and Norm invite a couple over for the weekend to watch a meteor shower,” HuffPost says. “Both are “troubled and titillated” by their guests, whose sexually aggressive behavior reminds them of their own repressed desires. The loopy encounter examines the discrepancies between the couples’ interior and exterior selves and the dynamics of their marriages.”
In a San Diego Reader review, Jeff Smith writes: “The play unfolds as if someone else wrote the script, a pseudo-surreal, pseudo-psychological comedy about dull Yuppie couples caught in a fractal Twilight Zone.”