Two things about full-stage blackouts that playwrights should be aware of: 1) since lights fading and then coming up again usually signal a lapse in time or locale, spectators usually spend the first 15 to 30 seconds following restoration of visibility re-orienting themselves to the onstage milieu, retaining little or nothing of the action transpiring therein, 2) alternating extreme brightness and darkness in swift succession for an extended period of time forces viewers’ pupils to contract and expand at aerobic speed, promoting severe eyestrain leading to distraction, discomfort and outright pain.
Unfortunately, the construction of John David Westby’s play leaves his technical designer no recourse but to light the stage in a manner guaranteeing audience inattention for most of its first act. Amid a montage of live-action tableaux, TV-monitor images and short conversations, we learn that the bound and murdered bodies of café owner Bert Franco and his staff were discovered in their workplace. That two TV News anchors disagree on how the story should be handled. That the late Mr. Franco’s estranged daughter is being extremely cooperative. And that when the latter confronts a recently freed suspect on-camera, the unexpected occurs.
All this serves to set up the second act, which takes us back in time to reveal the personalities of the victims, their past transgressions and present aspirations, hostile dynamics and uneasy truces, and a troubled father-daughter relationship that Westby probably meant to be more provocative than it comes off in this uncharacteristically clumsy Wing & Groove production. Our sketchy introduction to Julie Franco, whose pronouncements consist chiefly of whining over her unhappy childhood, sparks neither sympathy or suspicion, instead inclining us more to focus on Franco and his surrogate family– motherly Karen, adolescent Elena, and innocent Bihn. (When an actual infant is impractical, authors desiring a “wise child” frequently substitute an English-impaired adult– in this case, a Laotian immigrant)
The actors playing these roles delve their fashionably dysfunctional stereotypes (Bert is a stubborn patriarch, Karen is an ex-druggie, Elena is fleeing the gangs, Bihn is a foreign refugee) for what individuality can be wrung from Westby’s cut-and-paste script. Their industry rescues a cluttered narrative that– nope, never does get around to telling us whodunit.