Playwright: Kenneth Lin. At: Steep Theatre, 1115 W. Berwyn. Tickets: 1-868-811-4111; www.steeptheatre.com; $20-$22. Runs through: Aug. 17
Aaron, a privileged Anglo college student, takes a summer job as a beekeeper in Maine. Come fall he follows the bees to Texas rather than returning to Cornell. A full year passes as Aaron (Brendan Meyer) migrates as a fruit picker to California where he is brutally murdered (we are told) by several Latino co-workers. He's dead when the play begins but it takes a while to figure out, for Aaron writes and reads letters to his mother in which his life view evolves to embrace the natural world and his less-privileged colleagues in a Steinbeck-esque way.
But Aaron never mails those letters which explain so much. Why he doesn't mail them never is explained satisfactorily, except that the play isn't really about Aaron, but about his mother, Elizabeth (Kendra Thulin). Eventually reading the letters, Elizabeth abruptly flies to California to see the now-imprisoned men who killed Aaron. Elizabeth's journey is ill-advised as there are pieces to the Aaron puzzle she doesn't know. Deep in grief, she's in no condition to process what she discovers when she meets Happy (Jose Antonio Garcia), an immigrant Mexican to whom Aaron gave a large sum of money.
As directed by Keira Fromm, Fallow offers engaging performances in a somewhat off-putting play. Pithy individual scenes are acted with energy, tension and occasional charm but the play's structure is distracting and its theme difficult to grasp. For example, there are three characters who appear only once eacha no-no of contemporary playwritingamong them a college girl with whom Aaron flirts to no apparent dramatic purpose. Why is this character there? The other one-scene characters serve purposes for Aaron, but it's not Aaron's play. Elizabeth has only Happy off of whom to bounce, and the curious circumstances of their meeting are never explained (initially she has no idea who he is but he knows who she is).
The play focuses now on Aaron and now on Elizabeth, now on the dying-off of America's honeybees (a truth) and now on Anglo/Latino racism (cutting both ways). However, the key actions and relationships of the play aren't seen. We don't see what happens to Aaron or why, we don't witness Aaron's crucial evolving friendship with Happy, we never see a moment of interaction between mother and son. Fallow raises points and issues without delving into any of them and Lin simply doesn't tie his disparate ideas together. The play does not lack intelligence but connectedness. Its intimate and emotional moments stand quite separate from each other.
The graceful but spare physical production of beehives and grass combines the talents of Dan Stratton (set), Heather Gilbert (lighting), Alison Siple (costumes), Kevin O'Donnell (music/sound) and Samantha Umstead (wigs/make-up).