Rebeck starts by imagining that a newly discovered lost masterpiece by Kafka, a two-man play full of paranoia, existential absurdity, and faceless oppression, has been brought to Broadway - with, naturally enough in the current climate, two big movie-star action heroes playing the roles. Now an understudy has arrived to rehearse with the beta-male of the famous pair, so that if the alpha guy is out, beta can move up and the understudy can go on.
"The Understudy" quickly adds a few twists to the mix: Harry, the understudy, tells the audience in the first of many hilarious soliloquies that he auditioned for the action movie that the beta guy, Jake, has just starred in. Not only that, but we soon learn that the stage manager for this production, Roxanne, was Harry's fiancee until he skipped town six years before.
Sure, it's all very neat - bordering on too neat - but it's also so slickly constructed and snappily written that you can't help admiring its very precision. Besides, Rebeck takes this basic setup and runs with it, creating 90 minutes of show-biz satire, acerbic banter between the sexes, and fleeting glimpses of larger meaning that all add up to a very satisfying entertainment indeed.
Julie White, who won a Tony for "The Little Dog Laughed" and was also memorably hysterical in the Huntington's production of "Bad Dates" a few seasons back, was originally scheduled to play Roxanne, until (ironically, given the play's amusing take on Hollywood vs. Broadway) she landed a movie role. It's easy to imagine how brilliantly biting she would have been. But Kristen Johnston, best known from TV's "3rd Rock from the Sun," brings her own caustic strength and no-nonsense humor to the part. Though she had to call for a line at one point in Thursday's opening performance, she's generally an assured and commanding comedic presence at the center of the play's chaos - everything this stage manager should be.
Reg Rogers, meanwhile, is simply brilliant as Harry. Rebeck writes some fiendishly difficult speeches, full of half-completed sentences, self-interruptions, and meandering thoughts, and Rogers maneuvers through them with impeccable timing and effortless grace - even when he's negotiating a lightning shift from playing Harry to playing Harry-playing-in-Kafka.
