Playwright: Will Dunne. At: The 16th Street Theater, Berwyn Cultural Center, 6420 165th St., Berwyn . Runs through: 708-795-6704. Runs through: May 4
For its first hour or so, The Ascension of Carlotta is a quirky charmer. It's also a bit precious and heavy on the quirk, but playwright Will Dunne's romantic comedy starts off well enough as it sets up the story of Carlotta and Romeo, a pair of lovers in the working class, slightly shopworn vein of 'Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune.'
Then comes the wandering, unfocussed, hour-plus second half. The charm curdles as characters start doing wholly out-of-character things while uttering pseudo-poetic nonsense that wouldn't make it into a Hallmark card. 'A billion years have gone by in the history of my heart,' says Carlotta to Romeo after a major plot development that's about as likely as unicorns breeding in Cermak Plaza. Directed by Ann Filmer, Ascension features solid acting in the service of a script defined alternately by genre clichés and a preposterous story.
Carlotta is a 7-11 clerk. Romeo is a young man who arms himself with a water pistol that looks just like a real gun and dreams of becoming a convenience store robber. You can't fault Berwyn's 16th Street Theatre for poor timing with Ascension, which is also set in the near-west suburban city. Even so, a play goes for yuks through a character who waves a gun while planning retail stickups seems a poor choice for a community not half an hour from the Lane Bryant store where five saleswomen were shot to death just over eight weeks ago by a murderer who remains at large.
Questions of timing and taste aside, Dunne's script is rife with inconsistencies. Carlotta is quiet and responsible, an introvert who never misses a day of work; in other words, she's definitely not the sort of person who would go to a Motel Six for the night on a first date. Yet that's exactly what she does with Romeo, who asks her out after stopping by the store every morning for 29 days to buy the Sun-Times. ( 'You are my sun. And my times,' Carlotta tells him at the motel. )
Then there's Romeo's dubious 'career' aspirations. At one point, he says he's well aware of the fact that convenience stores have security video cameras rolling at all time, yet when he enters Carlotta's store for the first time—with the intention of robbing it—he hasn't donned a ski mask or any other sort of disguise ( or so we're led to infer, since she falls for him at first sight ) .
This is a one-joke comedy, with Dunne trying to wrest laughs from the outlandishness of the eccentric ( aspiring ) 'gentleman convenience store bandit.' The joke wears thin before the first scene is over, as does any authenticity Dunne's characters started out with.
'Let's find some new dreams, ( dreams ) we can share,' Carlotta implores Romeo. Better yet, find a new script.