Men (vs. men) at work

By MARK LOWRY

STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Among actors, Richard Dresser's black comedy Below the Belt is considered a knockout. Perhaps because it deals with three corporate drones stuck in the same department, setting the stage for competition and antagonism, much like the cutthroat process of auditioning for a role.

"I like that their status is so similar," says David Miller, who's directing the show for Amphibian Stage Productions (formerly Amphibian Productions). "That causes more problems than if their status were more differentiated. ... You put these three men in close quarters and see what happens."

Dresser, who wrote the play based on his own experiences in the corporate world, seems comfortable writing about relationships between men (see his play Rounding Third, about two little league baseball coaches; or the short-lived TV series The Job from 2001, with Denis Leary as an unconventional cop). More specifically, Dresser digs into the kind of male relationships that make competition on The Apprentice look like a '60s love-in.

"[The competition is] aggressively male. It's what gets you ahead and it's also what gets you in trouble," Miller says.

Below the Belt is set up in episodic scenes, with Merkin (Michael Muller) and Hanrahan (Evan Mueller) forming an alliance against Dobbitt (Jonathan Fielding).

The show is the first of two fully staged Amphibian summer productions at Texas Christian University (many of the company's founders are TCU graduates). Next up is Edwin Sanchez's Icarus, which, like Belt, emerged from the Actors Theatre of Louisville's prestigious Humana Festival of New American Plays.

Performances are 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays.

Below the Belt

Thurdsay through July 16

Texas Christian University

Studio Theatre

2800 S. University Drive

Fort Worth

$20

817-923-3012