The New York Times-20080127-On the Couch On a Hollywood Soundstage

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On the Couch On a Hollywood Soundstage

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ASIDE from its being a half-hour long, you wouldn't think HBO's new therapy-session series, In Treatment, had anything in common with the channel's hit comedy about wild boys in Hollywood, Entourage. They do, however, share an executive producer, Stephen Levinson, who said he thinks that there is an intersection between them: Each presents a glimpse into a world that feels eerily accurate.

You get a sense of reality from both of them, Mr. Levinson said. I think they both give you that fly-on-the-wall experience, which is what I'm really drawn to.

Much of the motor that drives In Treatment is its aura of stark authenticity. From Monday to Thursday most of the drama takes place on a single set: the shabbily-appointed home office of Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne), a psychotherapist with a contemplative nod, a creaking leather therapist's chair, a sagging orange couch and a roster of patients, each of whom divulge their anxieties and dark secrets in compelling bits, as if offering up weekly pieces to an emotional puzzle. The only time we see Dr. Weston on foreign turf is on Friday, when he visits his own therapist, Gina (Dianne Wiest) and tries to sort out his own tangled feelings.

In Treatment features almost as few camera angles as it does backdrops. What it does offer is something you don't see much on television, which is a cast concentrating on bringing life to long, complicated monologues while remaining seated.

That was actually the concern: 'How do we make this interesting? How do you make a two-page speech about what you were like when you were a kid compelling?' said Embeth Davidtz, who plays Amy, half of a couple who consult with Dr. Weston about their detonating marriage. Those things would make our hair stand on end. It was really intense.

In Treatment is based on Be' Tipul (In Therapy), a television series that had its debut in Israel in 2005. It found its way to the United States after coming to the attention of Noa Tishby, an Israeli-born actress who was visiting Tel Aviv from Los Angeles for a niece's bat mitzvah. The first season had just finished airing, and the country was in complete addiction mode, Ms. Tishby said. So in the span of 48 hours she discovered the show, attended her niece's ceremony, tracked down the show's creator and frequent director, Hagai Levi, and obtained permission to take it back to her manager, Mr. Levinson.

The bottom line is, people are people are people, said Ms. Tishby, an unknown in Hollywood who considers her In Treatment co-executive producer credit her biggest career break in America. It was clear the minute I saw it that it was about human nature, she said.

To sell the series, Mr. Levinson simply lent Ms. Tishby's disc of the first week of Be' Tipul to Carolyn Strauss, president of HBO entertainment. Ms. Strauss said, All we had to do was look at the Israeli shows and go, 'Wow, two people sitting in a room talking can be a terrific show.' She also understood that HBO was being offered not just a serious drama, but also an intriguingly new kind of program arrangement.

The In Treatment ad campaign promises: One doctor. Five sessions. Five nights a week. But the way the series is structured, viewers can tune in according to their interest level. Those who find only Tuesday's patient interesting, for example, might only watch that night. Meanwhile completists who prefer mini-marathons to nightly viewing can catch a week's worth of episodes in a block on HBO2 on Saturday and Sunday nights.

Since commissioning In Treatment, HBO has purchased the format of another Israeli series, a sort of Romeo and Juliet story called A Touch Away. I don't know what's in the drinking water there, Ms. Strauss said. But for as tiny as that country is, they make some interesting television shows.

Unlike a show from another country that is carefully sanded and polished to suit American tastes, In Treatment is essentially the same Israeli show but with English-speaking actors. Worried that the new cast -- which also includes Blair Underwood, Josh Charles, Melissa George and Mia Wasikowska -- would be influenced by their predecessors, Mr. Levinson and the executive producer Rodrigo Garcia encouraged them not to watch the original and discover in advance how their stories unfold.

We all had a sort of vague outline, Ms. Davidtz said. But then Rodrigo would say: 'Gosh, Embeth. Later you're going to find out she was fat as a child.' And I'd be like: 'Oh, Lord! Well, that informs certain things here.'

To imagine how In Treatment was assembled, it's almost easier to think of a series of one-act plays or even a nine-week-long highbrow soap opera. For five months actors would show up at Stage 25 on the Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood and on a two-day-per-episode shooting schedule recite pages and pages of confessional dialogue. Then they'd rest for five days, then start the cycle again.

Except, of course, for Mr. Byrne, who is featured in almost every scene in the 43-episode run and engendered in Ms. Davidtz a certain sympathy.

Poor guy, she said. I'd go away on holiday and come back, and he'd still be sitting in that chair, nodding. But at the same time Mr. Byrne functioned as the closest thing In Treatment had to a social hub.

I got to be very close with Josh and Gabriel, but otherwise we were all sort of separated, said Ms. Davidtz, recalling the only time she even saw Ms. Wiest backstage. I said, 'Hello, Dianne.' And she said, 'Hello' and kept going down the stairs. I think she thought I was a crew member.

[Illustration]PHOTOS: In the series In Treatment, Gabriel Byrne plays an analyst whose patients include Embeth Davidtz, center. Dianne Wiest, above, plays the doctor's own analyst. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY CLAUDETTE BARIUS/HBO; LACEY TERRELL/HBO)