Off-Broadway Play Review—“Cellino v. Barnes”

Cellino v. Barnes

Written by Mike B. Breen and David Rafailedes

Directed by Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse

Performances through October 13, 2024

Asylum NYC, 123 East 24th Street, New York, NY

cellino-v-barnes.com

Eric William Morris and Noah Weisberg in Cellino v. Barnes (photo: Marc J. Franklin)

A couple of Buffalo legends, personal-injury attorneys Ross Cellino and Steve Barnes became famous—then infamous—for their billboards and earworm jingle that was heard on radio and TV ads throughout Western New York (and which seemed to follow me as they opened offices in New York City and Long Island). The melody for “888-8888” will unfortunately remain embedded in anyone’s head who’s ever heard it, including those audiences who see Cellino v. Barnes, a purposefully silly, occasionally funny parody of how the men began, then ended, their law norm-shattering partnership in Buffalo. 

Anyone wanting real insights into the ethics and gamesmanship of all ambulance chasing attorneys—Cellino and Barnes were preceded by the legendary William Mattar, whose last name had the good fortune to rhyme with “hurt in a car,” as Cellino jealously points out—will need to look elsewhere, for Cellino v. Barnes is content to throw anything and everything at the wall and see what sticks. It has the feel of an SNL skit gone rogue: Starting with the notion that Barnes was an insufferable egghead and Cellino was a complete idiot, the play, cleverly staged by Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse, ricochets from one extreme to another, shooting off in all directions simultaneously with variable comic results.

Writers Mike B. Breen (who’s from Buffalo) and David Rafailedes originally wrote Cellino v. Barnes in 2018 as a vehicle for themselves to perform, so it’s not surprising that the play contains a lot of rat-a-tat dialogue and a surfeit of knockabout physical comedy. The actors in this staging—Eric William Morris (Cellino) and Noah Weisberg (Barnes)—certainly deserve praise for their breathless performances, although Weisberg’s Barnes bald cap is quite distracting…which may be the point. 

For 80 minutes, Morris and Weisberg race around the cramped stage reenacting the men’s quick rise to becoming a multi-million-dollar firm, first in Western New York then downstate. It begins as a bromance and ends with the pair squaring off in a prize fight; before the finale, they joke that the bitter, acrimonious battle leading to their split and forming separate firms—the Barnes Firm and Cellino Law—was simply a PR stunt. 

Of course, Barnes’ 2020 death with his niece in a small plane crash is not mentioned at all, since it’s a sad and bizarre epilogue to a compellingly strange story. It also underlines how reality usually writes a much more complicated ending than two playwrights can, however amusing they make their quick run-through.