Martin Denton | nytheatre.com May 25, 2008

Only one piece succeeds at being both fresh and engaging within the short-play format, David Zellnik's delightful Ideogram, which is as perfectly funny and complete as a ten-minute comedy can be. It begins from a simple enough premise: Jasper (winningly portrayed by Bryan Fenkart) gets his Chinese-American friend Drew (Pun Bandhu) a birthday card, and as a joke he scribbles some made-up Chinese characters on it. Drew gives the card to an elderly relative (played with grand comic panache by Siho Ellsmore) who insists that the writing is real—in fact she says it's a beautiful poem. Zellnik builds on this initial idea creatively and cannily, along the way providing some genuine belly laughs in an evening otherwise devoid of them.