Rebeck’s ‘Dead Accounts’ lacks sharpness

Tyson to take one-man show on the road

NEW YORK, Nov 30, (Agencies): You might expect Katie Holmes to have something to prove in her first acting appearance since splitting from Tom Cruise. You might expect her to emerge onstage in a gown by Valentino and shoes by Jimmy Choo.

Well, put those expectations aside. In Theresa Rebeck’s new Broadway play, Holmes first appears in sweat pants and fuzzy pink slippers, her hair in a frazzled ponytail and her spoon in a quart of antidepressant ice cream.

In “Dead Accounts,” Holmes plays an “old but pretty” woman who “seems like a loser” and lives at home with her parents. She only flashes her beauty once, freeing her hair and looking seductive – enough to remind you what a head-turner she can be.

It’s a brave move for the 33-year-old, who deserves credit for trying hard. But she mostly tries hard to keep up with stage veterans Norbert Leo Butz and Jayne Houdyshell in Rebeck’s oddly thin new play, which opened Thursday at the Music Box Theatre. Director Jack O’Brien struggles to both get the fiveperson cast to really jibe and the rhythm of the plot to get going.

Holmes relies too much on a whiny teenage angst and a guilelessness that worked on TV but lacks nuance onstage. That said, she does generate two of the biggest cheers in the play – one for pulling out a cheap box of wine from the fridge and the other for an anti-bankers rant that sounds like it could come from an Occupy Wall Street protester.

Rebeck, who created the first season of NBC’s “Smash” and several wellreceived plays including “Seminar” and “Mauritius,” has stumbled a bit with “Dead Accounts,” a love letter to the hardworking, plainspoken Midwest, but one that lacks the sharpness and depth of