When a barely post-adolescent waif camped by the roadside looks up with big, round, blue eyes and announces to the audience, “I killed my parents. I made them breakfast,” we are fairly sure that before the play is over, this questionable cook will do it again. Or not. Either way, it raises questions…was it an accident or deliberate?…for whose answers we are willing to wait for however long it takes. We like her, this enigmatic young vagabond, and we want her to escape whatever it was she fled Indiana to escape.
Oona…that’s her name…ultimately takes refuge in a warehouse dwelling belonging to Cal, who fabricates first-person yarns of exotic adventures, oblivious to contradictions therein. He has three likewise dysfunctional pals…hard-drinking Carol Lee, pregnant Rook, and unemployed Evan…who gather weekly to share the letters sent to each of them by an anonymous mentor strangely familiar with their activities. The innately psychic Oona soon discerns the identity of the mysterious correspondent and the purity of his motives, but her exposure of this benefactor only appears to make everyone more unhappy. After some wound-licking, however, they begin hesitantly reaching out to one another. But by then, it’s too late. Breakfast’s ready.
Matthew Wilson’s play could do with some editing…even if these slackers are supposed to be crippled by ennui, they take too long to gather themselves before jumping feebly from one revelation to the next. But the ensemble of actors…Thunder Road alumnae Amy Eaton and Deborah King, Great Beast regulars Jillian Erickson and Ryan Biddle LaFleur, along with newcomer Tim Smith as the Brando-esque Cal…immerse themselves in their melancholy personalities to hint at the emotional hunger lurking beneath the intellectual defenses, and, in doing so, forge a slyly intuitive connection with us as well. So while Wilson’s adagio-paced direction might render us impatient to Get On With The Story as it unfolds, long before Oona sadly concludes, “Every place turns into Indiana,” the fate of these misguided youths whose despair proves their undoing has already begun to haunt us…as it will continue to do, in spite of ourselves, long after the play is over.