A Playwright of Uncommon Power Emerges Further into the Light

With The Slide is the Negative, now playing at the intimate Chain Theatre in New York City, Shore demonstrates once again why critics have drawn comparisons to Beckett, Pinter, and the young David Mamet. Yet such comparisons, however flattering, do not quite capture the peculiar alchemy of his work. This dramaturgical voice synthesizes the absurdist’s moral ambiguity with the naturalist’s unflinching gaze upon human weakness.

The production, brought forth through the collaborative energies of Axial Theatre and JCS Theater Company in association with the Oberon Theatre Ensemble, represents precisely the sort of theatrical enterprise that makes Off-Broadway indispensable to the American stage; moreover, it is produced with Michael Howard Studios and Fortify.Space lending their support as producers–the production demonstrates how collaborative theatrical ventures can yield works of genuine artistic consequence.

The Stage as Moral Crucible: Set and Atmosphere

Director Paul Smithyman, a thirty-year veteran who has worked on over 150 productions at Lincoln Center Theater, understands that the most devastating human dramas require the simplest of settings. Consequently, the stage presents us with a large bed and two tables burdened with bottles of alcohol—domestic props that become instruments of revelation. The color palette of red and purple suffuses the space with an almost liturgical quality, as though we are witnessing not merely a domestic drama but a ritual sacrifice upon the altar of ambition.

When sounds intrude upon the dialogue—and they do, with the calculated precision of a surgeon’s scalpel—they carry an ominous weight, functioning as harbingers of the catastrophe we sense approaching. This is theatrical foreshadowing, employed with restraint and intelligence, reminiscent of a technique that deploys the accumulated weight of atmosphere pressing upon action.

Four Souls Entangled: The Characters and Their Performers

The play concerns four individuals whose lives have become hopelessly entangled by desire, deception, and the corrosive effects of unchecked ambition. Three-time Emmy Award winner Cady McClain delivers a performance of remarkable complexity as Kelly, a photographer who exists perpetually in the shadow of her husband Barry’s literary success. McClain, who made history as the first woman to win Daytime Emmys for three different characters on three distinct series, brings to Kelly a wounded intelligence that makes her subsequent betrayal both comprehensible and tragic.

As Barry, the successful writer whose brilliance casts long shadows, Brad Fryman—Artistic Director of the Oberon Theatre Ensemble—rejoins Shore after their successful collaboration on A Groundbreaking Achievement of Outrageous Importance That People Scroll By, Barely Impacted. Fryman inhabits Barry with the particular self-assurance of a man who has never learned the difference between talent and entitlement. His reunion with McClain, following their work together in Austin Pendleton’s Orson’s Shadow, demonstrates the remarkable chemistry that develops when accomplished actors share multiple productions.

Ryan Tramont, known to film audiences from Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Netflix’s Narcos, portrays Joe with the barely suppressed volatility of a man whose demons have found a too-comfortable home. From the play’s opening moments—when Joe speaks with Barry about killing Anne—Tramont establishes a tension that persists throughout the evening, his performance serving as a reminder that violence in drama, as in life, begins long before any physical act.

The quartet is completed by Sophie Moshofsky, whose Anne becomes the axis upon which the play’s moral universe rotates. Fresh from her acclaimed work in Scarlet Winter on Apple TV and the award-winning YouTube series The Hunted: NYCSS, Moshofsky brings to Anne a warmth that makes her ultimate fate all the more affecting. The friendship between Kelly and Anne, with its undercurrents of jealousy and competitive admiration, represents Shore’s most nuanced achievement in this work.

The Photograph as Moral Weapon: Themes of Art and Betrayal

At the play’s center lies a photograph—a single image captured on old-fashioned slide film, which gives the play’s title its double meaning. The picture, taken by Kelly of Anne in a compromising position, represents both Kelly’s artistic breakthrough and her moral nadir. Shore uses this conceit to explore questions that resonate far beyond the stage: What are the boundaries of creative license? Does the creation of meaningful art justify the destruction of meaningful relationships? And perhaps most disturbingly, can consent be retroactively revoked when the consequences of one’s choices become apparent?

The play’s structure proves equally provocative. Shore opens with a glimpse of the future—Joe discussing murder with Barry—before retreating to trace the path that leads to such desperate contemplation. This technique, employed by masters from Sophocles to Pinter, transforms the audience from passive observers into active participants, searching for the precise moment when tragedy becomes inevitable.

A Production Team of Remarkable Distinction

The production benefits enormously from a creative team that includes some of Off-Broadway’s most accomplished artisans. Tony Award nominee Emily Rebholz, whose costume work has graced productions including Dear Evan Hansen, Indecent, If/Then, and Jagged Little Pill, clothes these characters in garments that reveal character without announcing theme. Yang Yu’s lighting design creates pools of illumination that function almost as additional characters. In contrast, Zoe Stanton-Savitz’s sound design provides the ominous aural landscape that gives the play’s silences their particular weight.

The intimate choreography of the production—both physical and emotional—bears the mark of Judi Lewis Ockler, whose credentials as intimacy and fight director include productions of Hot Wing King and Our Dear Dead Drug Lord. In a play that deals so directly with the violation of bodily autonomy through the medium of photography, having a skilled intimacy director becomes not merely advisable but essential.

Open Marriage as Dystopia: The Play’s Philosophical Core

The characters in The Slide is the Negative speak of their arrangements—the ménage à trois, the open marriage, the fluid boundaries—with the casual sophistication of those who believe they have transcended bourgeois morality. Yet Shore, like Ibsen before him, understands that liberation without responsibility is merely license, and license inevitably exacts its price. The celebration of openness gradually reveals itself as a carefully constructed dystopia, a house built upon sand that the first serious wave will destroy.

As the characters ruminate about careers, relationships, and dreams—all while consuming prodigious quantities of alcohol—one feels for them even as one senses that their carefully constructed world cannot hold. When Anne discovers Kelly’s photograph, the spiral into deceit, ambition, and emotional devastation begins in earnest. The denouement, which transports Joe to Spain under circumstances the audience must discover for themselves, provides a conclusion that is both surprising and, upon reflection, inevitable.

A Rising Star Worth Catching

Charles Kruger of Stage and Cinema observed of Shore’s previous work that “at least one critic has compared his previous work to Beckett. In my case, both Harold Pinter and the young David Mamet spring to mind. Such comparisons invite skepticism; too often, they represent critical laziness rather than genuine insight. Yet, having witnessed The Slide is the Negative, one understands the impulse. Shore writes with Pinter’s gift for pregnant pauses and Mamet’s ear for the rhythms of contemporary speech, while maintaining a moral vision distinctly his own.

The Chain Theatre, with its intimate configuration, proves the ideal venue for such a work. Situated in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district, this black box space strips away the distance between performer and audience, making complicity in the drama impossible to avoid. We become witnesses to the destruction unfolding before us, unable to look away, unwilling to intervene.

Furthermore, this production represents a landmark moment for Axial Theatre, currently celebrating its 25th season, and for McClain, who serves as the company’s Artistic Director. The collaboration between the Westchester-based Axial and the Brooklyn-based JCS Theater Company, alongside the Oberon Theatre Ensemble (now in its 28th season under Fryman‘s artistic direction), demonstrates the vibrant ecosystem of independent theater that flourishes beyond Broadway’s bright lights.

The Slide is the Negative: A Devastating Portrait of Ambition’s Wreckage at the Chain Theatre

By Jake Shore

Directed by Paul Smithyman

Cast (in order of appearance)

Ryan Tramont as Joe
Brad Fryman as Barry
Sophie Moshofsky as Anne/S.J.
Cady McClain as Kelly

Artistic

Costumes by Emily Rebholz
Lighting by Yang Yu
Sound design by Zoe Stanton-Savitz
Set by Paul Smithyman
Intimacy and Fight Direction by Judi Lewis Ockler
Stage Management by Samantha L. Robbins
Press by Spin Cycle