#tim-robinson

#tim-robinson

The world of "The Chair Company," by contrast, is full of characters who possess their own sparks of Robinsonian madness, their own humiliations and self-defeating obsessions. There is the older colleague who was passed over for Ron's job, played by the veteran "S.N.L." writer Jim Downey: following his non-promotion, he makes it his business to enliven the workplace-first by blowing bubbles with a wand he wears around his neck, then by throwing a party.

Ron is genuinely beset by absurdity, misfortune and other people's idiocy and selfishness, but always manages to react in a way that makes everyone around him conclude that he is the problem. Whereas Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm met the world's small annoyances in a rational but insensitive manner, Ron combats them irrationally and too sensitively. The opening scene sets the tone: