Fuzzy Logic Blunts ‘Sizemore’s’ Impact

Playwright Glen Merzer is itching to blow the lid off a scandal, but his slipshod drama “The Sizemore Interviews,” at the Hudson Guild, wouldn’t pass muster in the tawdriest tabloid.

Based on a true story, Merzer’s play hinges on an obscure imbroglio that transpired during the U.S. invasion of Panama. On Dec. 20, 1989, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw conducted two live phone interviews with Roger Sizemore, purportedly a businessman holed up in the Panama City Marriott who called NBC and described the invasion from the vantage point of his hotel window. A few hours later, Brokaw and Bryant Gumbel interviewed this “eyewitness” on the “Today” show.

Merzer’s point? That Roger Sizemore was actually Brian Seifert, who spoke to NBC not from Panama City, but from the basement of his suburban U.S. home. Although NBC has persistently denied knowledge of any fraud, Seifert insists that he was awakened by a mysterious NBC newsroom employee, who supposedly mistook Seifert for Sizemore and solicited Sizemore’s help in a trumped-up interview, actually loosely scripted beforehand. Deciding to play along, Seifert participated in the subsequent “interviews.”

Merzer, who also directs, uses this alleged incident as the basis for his play--and also as the rationale for an attack on the network news establishment. But even if, in the heat of their live coverage, Brokaw and Gumbel were duped by a deception, there seems little hard evidence, apart from Seifert’s impassioned assertions, that he was propelled into fraud by NBC.

Messy logic doesn’t stop Merzer from a full-on frontal assault, armed only with conspiracy theories and misplaced zeal. As Brian, the protagonist, Brett Thacher tries to span the gamut from mischievous to messianic, but his character’s collapse into self-pitying righteousness is simply creepy. The tone vacillates tiresomely from relationship drama to cheeky satire to wannabe expose. Brian’s genuinely funny exchanges with Kayla (Lili Nadja Barsha), the supposed engineer of the plot, give us an inkling of what this play could have been, if its subject had been presented with more control and less pretension.

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* “The Sizemore Interviews,” Hudson Guild Theater, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends April 8. $20. (323) 930-9304. Running time: 2 hours.