THE EXERCISE
The plot, such as it is, involves an unnamed actor and actress rehearsing a play, presumably for a Broadway production–the script indicates that they’re fairly well known. Clearly they were romantically involved in the past, and perhaps married (one line indicates this, but otherwise it isn’t mentioned).
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The two meet at the theater before the full rehearsal because the woman is having trouble with her part. Shortly it becomes apparent that she has trouble working from any written text; she’d rather play improvisational games. Why he goes along with her is anyone’s guess. Each improvisation gets more and more cruel, and soon they are far away from the world of their play and deep into their pasts. They begin a contest: who can tell when an improv is completely fictional and when it’s based on truth? Neither is very good at telling the difference, a good indication of what their problems as a couple might have been.
Some elements of The Exercise are intriguing. Carlino plays with the concept of the fourth wall, opening up the question of whether the characters know that the audience is there. He also chooses to blur the distinction between his characters and the real people portraying them, so there’s always a question in the audience’s mind as well. And some of Carlino’s ideas about theater are quite interesting–to people in theater.
