Dark Play or Stories for Boys, A CurtainUp Los Angeles theater review

CurtainUp

The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings

www.curtainup.com

HOME PAGE

SITE GUIDE

SEARCH

ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP

REVIEWS

FEATURES

NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings

LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway

NYC Restaurants

BOOKS and CDs

OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
Philadelphia
Elsewhere

QUOTES

TKTS

PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS

LETTERS TO EDITOR

FILM

LINKS

MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
Writing for Us

A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review

Dark Play or Stories for Boys

By Laura Hitchcock

Dark Play is a kind of game where certain players know the rules and other players don't.— Mrs. Spiegel

This play's title could do without the last four words, since the games these on-line teen-age boys play could be played by any sex at any age. Developed by playwright Carlos Murillo at the California Santa Barbara Summer Theatre Lab under the supervision of Naomi Iizuka and now running at The Theatre@Boston Court, Dark Playlinks the dangers of internet chat rooms with a sensibility influenced by 14-year-old Nick's theater teacher, Mrs. Spiegel. She tells her class, "The best theater t takes the audience on a journey into the deepest, most dangerous regions of the human soul. At the end of the journey, the audience has faced that darkness, that danger and can see the darkness and danger lurking in their own souls and actively take steps to change it." Nick soon discovers the fallacy in this dogmatic pap when, a new kid in town, he fixates on the World Wide Web as "the one place kids my age and demeanor could escape the cruel and unusual punishments assigned by your peers."

The play begins in Nick's college dorm room when his first girlfriend asks him about the scars on his midriff. "Do I tell her the truth or do I do what I do so well? Make shit up?" he muses. The story he tells the girl takes her into that chat room where his 14-year-old self has become disillusioned with cyber sex and the awesome response to fake seduction ads. When he comes across a naively worded ad from 16-year-old Adam, reading "I want to fall in love", he's blown away. What is this love? He has to find out. He knows Adam won't tell him because Adam is looking for a fantasy girl. So Nick becomes Rachel and Adam does fall in love. What follows is as predictable and tragic as Cyrano de Bergerac and as melodramatic as something you'd expect a 14-year-old comic book junkie to create. On the other hand, he could easily have lived it.

Stewart W. Calhoun makes Nick credibly precocious and heartbreakingly vulnerable. Adam Haas Hunter brings Adam from innocence to corruption with wide-eyed subtlety. They're ably supported by Danielle K. Jones as Rachel/Molly, the fantasy modeled on Nick's real life love or vice versa, and Johnathan McClain and Bethany Pagliolo in a variety of parts. One of my favorites was Pagliolo's cop, Olivia, who, while goading Adam into retribution, corrects his grammar and spelling.

Murillo has an aptitude for skewering today's culture through piercing literate dialogue and credible, sad and questing characters. It's material that brings out the best in Michael Michetti's intuitive direction.

DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS
Playwright: Carlos Murillo
Director: Michael Michetti
Cast: Stewart W. Calhoun (Nick), Danielle K. Jones (Molly/Rachel), Johnathan McClain (Male Netizen), Adam Haas Hunter (Adam), Bethany Pagliolo (Female Netizen)
Set Design: Donna Marquet
Video Design: Austin Switser
Lighting Design: Lap-Chi Chu
Costume Design: Rachel Myers
Sound Design: Cricket S. Myers
Running Time: One hour 40 minutes, no intermission
Running Dates: October 13-November 18, 2007
Where: The Theatre@Boston Court, 70 Mentor Street, Pasadena, CA, Reservations: (626) 683-6883.
Reviewed by Laura Hitchcock on October 12.

broadway musicals: the 101 greatest shows of all time

Easy-on-the budget super gift for yourself and your musical loving friends. Tons of gorgeous pictures.

Leonard Maltin's 2007 Movie Guide