Playwright: Robert Askins. At: Signal Ensemble Theatre, 1802 W. Berenice Ave. Tickets: 773-698-7389; www.signalensemble.com; $20. Runs through: Sept. 22
"When Jesus comes back, He won't be coming to Texasbecause there's nothing here worth saving!" After blurting out these angry words at the funeral of his clergyman father, teenage Jim prepares to flee the despair reflected in this pronouncement. As the man who will sabotage his escape observes, however, "If you were really going, you'd be gone." Jim hesitates before embarking, just long enough to order a beer. So does Esme, the church-going girl he invites to come with him. Soon both these waifs find their destinies inextricably entangled with that of aging hell-raiser Fritz and the repercussions of his own hesitation, years earlier.
Oh, yes, we are in the realm of Southwestern noir nowterritory rendered familiar by, among other authors, Sidney Kingsley, Sam Shepard and Tracy Letts: a sun-baked wasteland wheredespite references to malls and carry-out lattésit is always 1955, where a riverside metropolis still conjures visions of cactus and drought-infested flatlands and where bartenders dispense whiskey (with the occasional beer, their only stock) to the same three customers. In short, it's where life is dark and bitter as chicory coffee and grim as a Johnny Cash song.
What distinguishes Robert Askins' ballad from such prototypical panhandle parables as Killer Joe and Bug is that its desperadoes lie, rob, betray and murder not for money or glory, but for love. "You ain't no angel, and you can't save nobody," the seen-it-all bartender tells Esme, the inadvertent candidate for the role of good woman to whom her two suitors look for their reformation and ultimate redemption.
Tragedy recounts the fall from lofty heights but in this universe, the descent is from the curb to the gutteror the grave. It takes a bare 90 minutes for everybody's plans to go awry, but director Bries Vannon refuses to hurry the dramatic action, instead allowing it to emerge as slowly and ominously as a sidewinder stretching in the sun. By encouraging us to savor each new twist in the Byzantine plot, Signal Ensemble company members Joseph Stearns and Meredith Bell Alvarez, along with guest players Rob Fenton and Carolyn Braver, gradually draw us into their personae's quest for a ticket out of soul-shriveling existential squalor. Starwatchers are advised to note especially Braver's nuanced performance as the enigmatic Esme. When a jailbait-pretty damsel shrugs, "You take what you get," her complicity in the fates of those willing to offer her things is a question that lingers in the mind.