--- title: Larry David: Fish in the Dark Broadway Review description: TV's favorite curmudgeon delivers a Broadway hit, but a mediocre play canonical: https://time.com/3732099/larry-david-fish-in-the-dark-broadway-review/ author: Richard Zoglin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-06T01:00:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T04:54:50.474Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Larry David's 'Fish in the Dark': Curb Your Enthusiasm og:description: TV's favorite curmudgeon delivers a Broadway hit, but a mediocre play og:url: https://time.com/3732099/larry-david-fish-in-the-dark-broadway-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4717ae0ca3ee8f90/6987821bcd68482928099ff1/fish-in-the-dark.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Fish in the Dark og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Larry David's 'Fish in the Dark': Curb Your Enthusiasm twitter:description: TV's favorite curmudgeon delivers a Broadway hit, but a mediocre play twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4717ae0ca3ee8f90/6987821bcd68482928099ff1/fish-in-the-dark.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Review: Curb Your Enthusiasm for Larry David's _Fish in the Dark_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Richard Zoglin](https://time.com/author/richard-zoglin/) ## Richard Zoglin Mar 6, 2015 1:00 AM UTC  Rachel Resheff, left, and Larry David during a performance of the comedy Fish in the Dark, at the Cort Theatre in New York. Rachel Resheff, left, and Larry David during a performance of the comedy Fish in the Dark, at the Cort Theatre in New York.Joan Marcus—Philip Rinaldi Publicity/AP by [Richard Zoglin](https://time.com/author/richard-zoglin/) ## Richard Zoglin Mar 6, 2015 1:00 AM UTC The Cort Theater has the worst men’s room on Broadway. The line at intermission for the undersized facility starts upstairs at the bar, snakes down the steps and then winds back and forth like the Saturday-afternoon queue for Space Mountain at Disneyland. At a recent performance of Larry David’s _Fish in the Dark_, a couple of dozen patrons were still waiting their turn when an usher announced that the curtain for Act II would go up in exactly five minutes — and anyone not in their seat would be denied admission for the rest of the play. I tell this not to expose my bladder issues, or to complain about officious, anti-consumer Broadway theater policies (though I could). It just seemed like the perfect set-up for a Larry David routine. Imagine his cry of petulant indignation at the notion that, thanks to a theater’s inadequate bathroom facilities, paying customers might be barred from the show’s second act and forced to take a premature cab ride home. Then again, they wouldn’t be missing a lot. David’s first Broadway play, which opened last night after weeks of buzz and booming box-office business, runs barely two hours, but it seems padded out, overpopulated (18 characters — enough for a Shakespeare history play!), and funny only in spurts. It’s great to see David, the star and creator of the popular HBO series _Curb Your Enthusiasm_, taking a crack at Broadway. But for all the audience’s indulgent laughter and the obligatory standing ovation at the end, one can’t help but detect a certain, well, lack of enthusiasm. The play is certainly made to order. David plays Norman Drexel, a version of the familiar character he portrays on _Curb_: a dyspeptic curmudgeon who is constantly exasperated by the petty slights, annoyances and absurdities of everyday life. The play opens in a hospital waiting room, where Norman’s father is dying and assorted family members are coming to pay their last respects — and squabble over everything from which son will have to take care of Mom to who gets Dad’s Rolex watch. On _Curb Your Enthusiasm_ (and before that on _Seinfeld,_ the hit NBC sitcom he created with Jerry Seinfeld), David proved himself a master of structure: weaving three or four storylines each week into a neat, 30-minute operetta of comic angst. With a two-act play to fill up, David has made everything bigger. The first predicament facing the family is whether the dying patriarch should be hooked up to a ventilator to prolong his life or not. A promising avenue for David’s dark, politically incorrect comedy — but he drops it after 20 minutes with perfunctory haste, and nary a punch line. From there the plot meanders through complications both consequential (the maid reveals that she and the dead man had a secret affair — and a love child) and superfluous (Norman’s daughter won’t drop the British accent she’s sporting for her starring role in _My Fair Lady_). Onstage, David is bigger too. His whiny voice and perplexed expressions are perfectly sized for the small screen. Here he has to project his trademark shrug to the back of the mezzanine — hunching up his shoulders and stretching his arms so wide he looks like a seagull coming in for a landing at Kennedy Airport. Still, David works hard to please, and he is helped out by pros like Rita Wilson, as Norman’s wife, Ben Shenkman, as his brother, and Louis J. Stadlen, as a loudmouth uncle. _Fish in the Dark_ is hardly devoid of laughs — like a running gag about tipping doctors, and the story behind the play’s mystifying title, which involves a dinner where Dad almost choked on some fish bones because it was too dark to see the food. But for a comedy writer who practically reinvented the TV sitcom, it’s surprising to see how clumsy and old-fashioned David’s playwriting is. For each of the many scene changes, the curtain has to drop, while the audience is distracted by a video projection of a death certificate and perky, _ba-da-ba-da-ba_ vocals that sound like they come from a 1960s Ross Hunter comedy. Given the sorry state of recent Broadway comedy (_Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike_ won a Tony award!), _Fish in the Dark_ may be just diverting enough to satisfy theatergoers who are paying up to $500 to see Larry David’s hangdog act on stage. To that, I can only respond with a shrug. 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