Sooner/Later

A new play by Allyson Currin

Or: Unromantic Spirits

Lexi (Olivia Cygan) needs a dad. She has convinced her mother Nora (Mary Bacon) to venture out of the cozy, uncomplicated life they share, trust her heart to the laws of probability and find herself a suitable mate. Nora has her own doubts about this, unwilling to submit herself to the thousand natural shocks that dates are heir too, even for the sake of her perfect teenager. Then, as these things go, a brusque but charming wit named Griff (Todd Cerveris) sparks first an argument, then a hostility, and finally an attraction. But, not all is as it seems and the happy ending promised must contend with the breakers of time, change, and the end that awaits all love, however freely given.

From the moment the audience files into the theater they will know, despite the billing, that this will be no ordinary romantic comedy. Set designer Narelle Sissons set of scraped and chipped boards and diffident furniture resemble a haven pulled together from a shipwreck, which is essentially what Nora has done with her life, her mind, and her heart in the wake of tragic events. It doubles nicely as a hipster coffee shop but never surrenders its ghostly quality. Over the top of this winsome wreck, director Lisa Rothe has wound a fine garland of movement, an energetic and endlessly surprising physical language of motion: the dance of the living.

The contrast between the architecturally somber and the kinetically endearing is a fine physical embodiment Playwright Allyson Currin’s quest to strike a perfect balance between comedy and drama in her play. It’s an honorable quest but, early days as it is, the story keeps wobbling. Her plot is a smart one, and ought to be full of mystery and surprise, but Currin puts perhaps too much faith in the astuteness of her audience, and revelations that should bring us up short with a cut of recognition or a flash of insight, remain unstated and are left to bleed all over the place. Moreover, though wit flows freely and Currin has a searingly good grasp of Adolecentese and Momish the repartee suffers from a (not chronic, but evident) case of Tennis Dialog, batted back and forth not in conversation but to keep the ball in the air.

This in no way detracts from the artistry that has gone into the production. Currin’s comedy ranges from subtle grin-inducing witticism to the best kind of horrible puns, and when the play takes off its gloves its blows reign heavy upon us. Griff and Nora’s early sparring are what dialog from all romantic comedies ought to be, sharp, flashy and without the least hint of authorial condescension. The measuredness of the lines though do make it an uphill battle for the actors. Bacon gives a wonderfully while she girds herself in the blouses and dresses Lexi tosses to her (nicely coordinated by Theresa Squire, who’s ensembles does a good share of lugging the play's mystery over the threshold of revelation) and is driven to the high of sympathetic irascibility and gripping self-doubt as things take a turn for the worse. But, often the actresses choices are snagged and mired by a character with a host of quirks and no backing behind them, which are forced to manifest themselves in choppy gestures and staccato speech. Griff is slightly bettered settled as a character and is warmed by Cerveris’s mild voice and unintentionally caustic manner. Still, in the latter half, he’s stripped of agency, and his scenes with Bacon slow, from the somber to the merely poky.

Currin as the best grip on Lexi and Cygan takes her bequeathment and invests all of it. Lexi begins the play as the unofficial storyteller, showing us the elements that she hopes she can knit together. She also begins as the perfect daughter, warm and attentive and given to sudden bursts of wild, smiling exuberance. But beyond those sunny rays lurks a turbulent anxiety, a need for this to come off, for both her mother and herself to leave the isolation that smothers them. As things go from bad to worse, that angst envelops her until only occasional flashes of that barefooted joy can be glimpsed, as she dashes across the stage, driven by a frenetic (and still comedic) engine of despair. She best captures the feeling of tragedy the settles in a heavy dew across the play, not the obvious rendering and anguish of loss that’s so easy and cheap to execute, but rather the little shards held huddled in a kerchief; minutia of grief.