Stage and screen favorites David Hyde Pierce and Rosie Perez are currently starring in the new off-Broadway play "Close Up Space" at The Manhattan Theatre Club. Time Out New York contributing critic David Cote filed the following review.

Editors lead quiet lives. We sit in offices, cleaning up other writers’ copy. So playwright Molly Smith Metzler has to generate drama somehow in her new play, "Close Up Space."

In it, David Hyde Pierce plays an emotionally repressed literary editor. Just as he prunes excess verbiage, Paul Barrow seems to have deleted his ability to feel.

Early on, Paul demonstrates his trade: He cleans up two communications from the dean of his daughter’s boarding school, explaining why she has been expelled for erratic behavior.

Paul flaunts his syntactical acumen while avoiding the messier question: Why isn’t he helping his troubled daughter? It’s pointless to ask. "Close Up Space" is the sort of aggressively wacky piece that frustrates empathy or logic.

Office manager Steve, played by Michael Chernus, is secretly camping in the office in a tent, because his dog bonded with his roommate.

Paul’s daughter, Harper, played by Colby Minifie, shows up shouting in Russian and pelting him with snowballs.

Hotshot author Vanessa, played with gusto by Rosie Perez, alternately insults and seduces Paul.

As for Paul, he doesn’t get that his daughter, still bitterly missing a dead mother, never forgave him for being cold and distant.

Metzler can write sharp, witty one-liners, but her dramatic structure is haphazard and her characters seem like walking quirk machines.

Although David Hyde Pierce is always a joy to watch onstage, this seasoned character actor should have demanded that "Close Up Space" go through a heavy edit.