Loving Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner is easy. Making an audience care about them theatrically? That is the challenge “Gene & Gilda” never manages to meet. Any play about such strong and well-known characters must earn that emotional investment through good writing, strong performances, and compelling staging, regardless of how much audiences might adore Gene and Gilda in real life. Currently running at 59E59 Theaters, Cary Gitter’s script is not serving its serious subject matter.

Although Gilda (Jordan Kai Burnett) and Gene (Jonathan Randell Silver) do their best to grapple with the script, under Joe Brancato’s direction the connection between the actors – which is particularly significant for a play that’s supposed to be about a legendary romance – does not exist. If the central relationship doesn’t feel authentic or electric, that undermines the entire premise.

This is unfortunate. Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner have an engaging and authentic life story. How and where it began, how the pair grappled with their differences, their inability to have children, and ultimately how they dealt with Gilda’s diagnosis of ovarian cancer, are important. Perhaps Cary Gitter’s choice to frame the story as an interview between Dick Cavett (voice only) and Gene after Gilda’s death is one problem with this current production. Having Gilda’s ghostly appearance throughout the narrative compounds the issue. Although the magical realism device, the interview framing, and Joe Brancato’s flat staging are attempts to find a theatrical language for the material, the effort just never lands successfully.

“Gene & Gilda” had previous runs at Penguin Rep in Stony Point, New York and George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Before any further runs, the creative team might look closely at their choices and make some adjustments which might address some of the issues outlined above in this review.

It really wouldn’t matter if the two characters were someone other than Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner. And this is the central problem with the current staging. If you could swap out Gene and Gilda for any other couple and the play would work (or fail) the same way, then the playwright hasn’t captured what made them specifically magical together. It means the play is just a generic template about “famous couple falls in love, faces tragedy” rather than a story that could only be about Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner.

Ultimately, “Gene & Gilda” commits the cardinal sin of biographical theater: it makes two utterly unique people feel utterly replaceable. That’s not just a weak script—it’s a betrayal of the very subjects it claims to honor.