For those who have not seen this play, but will, **SPOILERS AHEAD*** 
so read "at your own risk":

Well, the plot of "Match" (a 2-act play), concerns itself with 3 
characters, Tobias (Tobi) Powell which is Frank Langella's role, 
an ex-professional dancer who is now a teacher at Juilliard, who 
is visited by Seattle residents Mike Davis (Ray Liotta), a policeman, 
and Lisa, his wife, a researcher who wants to interview Tobi about his
dance career.  Tobi, we find out, is originally from Maine (growing up on, 
of all things, a pig farm), and lives alone in a small apartment in 
New York City.

The play opens with Tobi sitting on his couch, in his old shorts and 
an old red shirt, with a pair of skid-proof crew-like mid-calf-length 
socks on, (his costume throughout the play.  Nice legs, too!!)  He is 
passing the time away knitting his little heart out, listening to music, 
until he realizes that he has to get ready for Lisa's and Mike's visit.  
He rushes into his bedroom to put the knitting away, and goes into his 
little kitchenette to get some snacks and, I think, some wine for his 
guests.  He goes into his cupboard and gets some chips, and puts them 
into a bowl which he sits on his little dining table, and does a little 
dance of satisfaction (a funny bit) and goes to taste the chips.  He 
then makes a groan at the taste and rushes back into the kitchen 
and grabs a box of Chex Cereal, and puts some of that into a bowl 
as snacks for his guests.  Then, again, to taste it for freshness, he 
accidentally tastes the chips that he hated, and groaning, takes the 
whole bowl of bad chips into the kitchen.

Now, here's the next (groaningly) funny bit.  On a ledge behind his 
little easy chair, is a small vase-like bottle, which has this odd-looking 
content in the bottom of it.  You don't know what it is until Tobi goes 
to get a little box near it, takes the vase-like thing down, takes the top 
off of it, and into the little box, starts clipping his fingernails, putting 
the contents of the cast-off nails from the little box into the vase-like 
jar.  He does other little prissy-like things to try and make his little 
apartment seem like a cozy place for his guests.  

His company soon arrives, and he tries to make them comfortable.  
His wife, Lisa, is there to interview him for some dance-related project 
of hers, and Mike is her mainly silent, but VERY restless assistant; 
looking at him, you can tell that something's wrong.  Whenever Tobi 
speaks to him, Mike is terse and gives short, indifferent answers.  The 
interview seems to go well until the subject of sex is brought up.  Lisa, then 
Mike, presses Tobi about his sex life, especially during the 1950's--mainly 
1959, to be exact, when he was a part of a dance company in NYC, and 
he lived a happy and promiscuous life, with both men and women, before 
getting a job with the Ballet of Cuba.

Mike's edginess and hostility comes to the forefront when, in taking Tobi 
off guard, starts grilling him about his having met a certain woman back in 
1959 and having an affair with her.  It turns out that Mike and Lisa got a 
hold of Tobi as a ruse for Mike to find out if Tobi is his father.  Mike's 
mother was once Tobi's lover, but she also may have fathered him by another 
man, though, before she died, told him that more than likely, it's Tobi that is
 his dad.  Tobi is furious at Lisa and Mike for conning him, and wants them 
to leave, but Mike refuses and threatens to have Tobi arrested (Mike's a 
cop in Seattle), for Tobi having offered to Mike and Lisa some hashish 
cigarettes, of which Lisa smoked, but Mike went through the motions of 
doing so.  Mike ends up wrestling with Tobi on his couch to get a DNA 
sample to take to a police lab in Paterson, NJ.  Mike, satisfied that he got
his sample then storms out of the apartment, but not before smashing to bits, 
Tobi's fingernail vase, and leaving Tobi and Lisa frustrated by his actions.

At the start of the 2nd act, while finishing up some Moo Goo Gai Pan that 
Lisa got him, and then helping him with straightening up from eating, Lisa 
apologizes for her husband's behavior, and Tobi plays it off by telling her 
how nice it was to have a little rough-house and simulates it as though it were 
like enjoying rough sex.  Then the conversation takes a very intimate and 
provocative turn:  Of sex, Lisa tells Tobi, like a good friend and confidant, 
that she and Mike haven't had sex in 11 months and Tobi confesses that he 
hasn't had sex in 6 years and his knitting is a way to release sexual tension 
for him.  Now one of the kickers to THIS portion of the play, is that you find 
out that Tobi is not gay, but bisexual, and VERY lonely.  In talking about how 
lonely he is, he speaks his thoughts aloud and tells Lisa that of the sexual act 
back in his active days, he was particularly fond of performing cunnilingus, 
and begins to compare aspects of it to knitting movements (a very clever 
comparison).

The lack of a sex life, as well as the strain on their relationship overall 
for the Davis's is due to Mike's being SO obsessed with his love-hate 
issues with seeking out his father.  Mike even takes out his frustrations 
at work, where we find that he got suspended from his job, pending 
further investigation, for roughing up a drug dealer with excessive force.

Although taken aback by Tobi's offer to pacify both of their longings 
with that act, Lisa declines, but is not offended by the candor of his 
proposition.  Instead, Tobi then tries to teach her how to dance, showing 
her that standing in 1st position has a cathartic effect, of which she declines.  

In more chatting, Tobi also reveals something to Lisa that both 
astonishes and pleases her.  While he was in Geneva, Switzerland as 
an opera choreographer, he came across an article about Mike, as a 
teenager, being a fencing champion, and he bought a book about fencing 
and put the article in it as a keepsake.  He even sent about $15,000 to 
Mike's mother for him, of which she thanked him for, but since he told 
her that he didn't want the responsibility of fatherhood when she first 
told him that she was pregnant, Tobi was not to contact her.  Seeing 
and saving that article made him break his promise to Mike's mother, 
and they kept in touch for a little while.  Thus Tobi admits to Lisa that 
Mike IS his long-lost son, and than he feels SO sorry to have not been 
a part of his life when he was growing up.  At this point, Lisa decided to 
do the 1st position, and she stands in 1st position, as Tobi shows her,
letting herself fall away and giving into feeling free.  She does, and feels 
much better, and they embrace.  She parts from the embrace in tears, 
and Tobi has her go to freshen up in the bathroom while he returns to his 
bedroom to put away the sweaters he has shown her that he has made 
from his knitting.  (Sweaters meant for his Maine relatives, but never sent.  
He even offers Lisa the sweater that he meant for his late mother).

Mike soon returns, and as Tobi and Lisa don't answer the door fast 
enough for him when he's knocking and ringing on it, Mike breaks the 
door down and he, Tobi and Lisa end up getting into a fight, where Tobi 
steps in between Lisa and Mike to keep Mike from hitting her, and he 
starts yelling at Mike, getting into his face, where then, Mike starts 
yelling at him about how he hates him for being a faggot, and not being 
there for his mom and he, and for his being selfish, and such, until he 
ends up breaking down into Tobi's arms, crying like a very hurt little boy.  
Tobi comforts him, and tells him that hasn't much to offer materialistically 
to Mike, but wants to try and do whatever he can to make up for the past.  
At the very end of the play, the telephone call that Mike gets from the lab 
confirms that Tobi IS his father. (Though there's a strange, if not awkward
 moment that seems almost ambiguous as to the paternity results). 
And they all agree that things are "okay" now as the curtain falls.

No doubt that this is a tour-de-force performance by Frank Langella, 
whose Tobi dominates the stage; rarely ever leaving it-nor the audience's 
conscience from the moment the curtain goes up, will tug at the heart.  
Langella shows a great range of personality as the gregarious chatterbox 
in discussing his dance career and entertaining his young guests, then 
tender in sharing his loneliness with Lisa, and then contrite when facing 
the fact of his selfish life and not having been a part of Mike's growing 
up.  He is, to quote Michael Musto of the Village Voice, "brill-rific":  
from the way he is dressed, the prissiness, the language he uses (making 
up the word "gi-normous" to describe his apartment's living room), and 
the way he likes throwing around the odd French phrases, (which it would
help for you to know, as Tobi does not translate for us what he says in 
French).  

When I saw it in previews, Ray Liotta's Mike, to me, left me very 
disappointed, as it was not a performance given by an actor with stage 
training, but one given by a film actor, playing out his intense film persona.  
He started with anger and rage from the moment he walked onto the stage, 
which didn't seem natural to me, as I felt that Mike's anger should have 
built up, so that by the end of the first act, you knew how deeply he was 
hurting by not having a father in his life.  He seemed VERY nervous, if 
not uncomfortable on stage then.  But after attending a post-opening 
night performance, his stage acting has improved such that I was very 
impressed with his performance.  

Ray hadn't been on stage for at least 25 years, but anyone in the company 
of the GREAT Langella, being able to learn and improve at the feet of a 
master thespian, would soon learn how to bring out the best in their craft.  
He was MUCH better at the end of the second act, when he takes out all 
his anger and pain on Tobi, and then breaks down crying like a wounded 
little boy.  "Match" is his Broadway debut.  

The first Lisa I saw was played by Alexandra Neil, the understudy, as 
Jane Adams, the leading lady got sick.  She was very enjoyable, and Frank 
had us (the audience) share his appreciation for her being a trooper to 
come into that night's performance, with nary a rehearsal behind her.  
She winged it admirably, and Frank hugged her, and Ray gave her 
flowers, and they took her to stand between the two of them to get her 
own applause before the curtain went down for the night.  The 2nd time 
I saw it, I saw Jane Adams, and I have to say that she brought out a kind 
of ditzy, but sensitive portrayal of Mike's sweet and long-suffering, wife 
that I hadn't seen in Neil's portrayal.  Both Liotta's Mike and Adams/Neil's 
Lisa pale in comparison to Langella's Tobi-already winning him the first 
theater award of the season, the Outer Critic Circle Award for Outstanding 
Actor in a Play.

This MATCH is UN-Matched on Broadway!!