But when the stage manager, Dave Polato, called "time," the cast leaped into skillfully controlled frenzy.
The cast leap about hyper-actively but, apart from the odd sequence (such as a Judo match between the geeks and the jocks) there is not much charm in all this robotic freneticism.
As men gallop around the stage and paw like horses, as a pillow explodes and scatters its feathers in the air, as a blind performer (the remarkable Said Gharbi) is totally integrated into an all-male cast that leaps, rolls, butts heads and engages in an intricate series of hand thrusts and parries, the entire evening takes on the aura of a purposefully incoherent fantasy.
Playing the great pretenders of "A Lie of the Mind," Mr. Hawke's cast members leap so high you may feel the safe, solid earth receding beneath you.
When the all-female cast starts leaping in a circle, like figures on a Greek vase, the effect is monumental, even when the piece is not set against the backdrop of the Stock Exchange building.
Set in the sweaty kitchen of the restaurant, its poky dining room and various apartments in the building in which it is housed, the play moves at an antic pace as the five cast members leap among more than a dozen roles.
However, she said she bore no ill feelings about her time on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but felt the casting on Leap Years was a "rare opportunity".
If drought be our pox, and fitness our romance, then, how perfect to see this cast tumble and leap, bodies tangled with dried garlands of ivy yanked from collapsing castles.
If the momentum is a tad unsteady, sometimes crawling when it should be leaping, each cast member has inspired moments.
