Sea of Tranquility
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Koch, Acuña
Photo by Craig Schwartz
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By January Riddle
There’s a mass of metaphors in Howard Korder’s perplexingly unanchored play playing at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. All of them are so obvious that a college freshman would need no Cliff notes.
There’s the crumbling adobe house in Santa Fe that was supposed to shelter a renewed life for East Coast transplants, Ben and Nessa, and becomes a symbol of their dissolving relationship instead. And there’s Nessa’s mysterious and progressively debilitating illness, hinting at a psyche in pain. Not to forget the characters themselves, an allegorical collection of personalities including a Latino prisoner, a Native American half-breed, an earth mother teenager, a biker anthropologist, a wacky runaway and her domineering businesswoman mother, a smarmy lawyer, a closeted gay man, and a pair of out lesbians, one of whom is mother to a skinhead kid.
In turn, each of them ends up on Ben’s couch in David Kay Mickelsen’s gorgeous set, offering a bit of personal history and a potential success story for their erstwhile, but misguided family counselor. The premise seems promising, mainly because shrinks and their patients offer unlimited humor and pathos potential.
Given Ben’s repeated concerns with change and his oft-stated belief in its positive outcomes, this could have been an entertaining, even revealing play. Instead, the humorous scenes are overwhelmed by hidden meanings or obscure and unresolved mysteries. Much of the fault lies in the muddied script, with its collection of caricaturist characters more suited to a TV soap opera, and its ball-dropping storyline that leaves too many questions blowin’ in the wind. Unfortunately, most of the blame belongs to director Michael Bloom and his too-obvious, pedantic blocking and lame interpretations. None of the characters seem worth caring about, so whatever points the playwright wanted to make get lost in the puzzle of missing pieces.
Nessa’s illness may stem from environmental causes, the obvious diagnosis in the end, but what about the lack of sexual intimacy between her and Ben that only comes out in the last scene? Why does Nessa constantly, annoyingly, refuse Ben’s attempts to care for her? Does Randy finally realize he’s gay in just a flash of self-recognition, or does his happy exit to a bar mean he’s still clueless? Does the Latino prisoner speak truth to power or is his diatribe a trite outburst, a defense mechanism, or both? Why would Ben be allowed to continue his practice, given what we learn about his past?
Ted Koch and Erika Rolfsrud as Ben and Nessa, respectively, don’t seem to click as a conflicted couple. Even their arguments lack passion, as if the commitment just isn’t there. As the anchors for the entire ensemble, their dearth of tension is problematic, and Bloom should have worked that out.
Conversely, Jeffrey Kuhn plays Randy, Nessa’s probably gay brother, with an exuberance bordering on mania. Randy’s past as a Hollywood writer and Kuhn’s experience with Monty Python’s Spamalot could account for that interpretation, but too much is too much. Veteran actress Rosina Reynolds rises nobly to the occasion in dual roles as Ashley and Adele, and Ned Schmidtke’s lawyer Johannsen is appropriately creepy.
Carlos Acuña as the prisoner Gilbert, Sloan Grenz as the teen skinhead, Josh, and Ashley Clements as the flower child, Kat give good performances in their roles, delivering some poignant and passionate scenes.
If only the actors had been more than bright spots in this dim production. Despite Time Magazine’s calling Sea of Tranquility one of 2004’s best, this Old Globe production is adrift.
Howard Korder’s Sea of Tranquility plays at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre through February 10.
Performances are at 7pm Sun, Tues & Weds; 8 pm Thurs, Fri, Sat. Matinees on Sat & Sun at 2pm.
Tickets are $19-$59. For reservations at 619-23-GLOBE or www.TheOldGlobe.org
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