Playwright: Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. At: Next Theatre Company, 927 Noyes, Evanston. Tickets: 847-475-1875; www.nexttheatre.org; $25-$40. Runs through: Oct. 11
Jason Southerland became artistic director of Next Theatre Company last spring but waited until now to make his directing debut with this 2009-2010 season opener. The question Boom raises isn't whether or not he can stage a show, but whether he can select a script. Boom is a bad play.
It's an 80-minute sitcom that's also a shaggy dog story with a not-sufficiently-potent punchline ( about fish and humanity in an apocalyptic future ) . In a confined setting ( an underground laboratory ) , a twenty-something boy and girl progress through a series of combative episodes over a period of nine months, or so we are told by a narrator who frequently interrupts them to jump the action to the next episode.
Now, TV sitcom nearly always is episodic ( think a typical Seinfeld segment ) , but it works because viewers see familiar characters behaving consistently from week to week and event to event. Audiences don't have that advantage in stage comedy, so the playwright's Number One Job is to establish his characters as real, believable and grounded people. Only then can they be placed in exaggerated situations. But author Peter Sinn Nachtrieb creates extreme circumstances from the get-go. He would have us believe that shy biologist Jules and sexually aggressive Jo are a Craig's List hook-up; that the world will be obliterated by a comet; that Jules wants to restart humankind with Jo; that Jules, however, is gay and a virgin; that Jo has frequent death-like blackouts; that they survive underground for nine months by beating each other up; and thatfinallyJo really is a virgin, too.
What part of this is supposed to be the truth? We never know. All we know is that Jules and Jo have zero chemistry, zero understanding of each other and almost never actually listen to each other, so intent are they on their individual agendas. Why does any of it matter? It doesn't, especially when the narrator delivers a shaggy-dog punchline which entirely negates Jules' and Jo's non-relationship.
The play has some amusing moments, for John Stokvis ( Jules ) and Kelly O'Sullivan ( Jo ) are attractive and deft enough ( narrator Shannon Hoag has far less to do ) , and Nachtrieb summons the occasional smartly quirky line, such as "Fish may not be intelligent, but they are rational." Southerland, as director, has staged Boom competently and his design team's work is solid ( especially Nathan Leigh's sound and Andre LaSalle's steel-bolted laboratory ) . But the sketch-like play offers little story or character development. Indeed, nothing evolves but the fish in this, the second play I've reviewed in a week ( Mistakes Were Made is the other, reviewed last week ) featuring an aquarium and finny folk. Is it a trend? Fishy or not, this Boom is a bust.