Completeness

Itamar Moses strikes gold again.  This time, on 42nd Street at Playwrights Horizons with his latest contemporary work, Completeness.  Mr. Moses has demonstrated his contemporary talents several times before off-Broadway in at least two prior shows that I have also thoroughly enjoyed, The Four of Us and Back Back Back.

In this incarnation, Mr. Moses has penned a complex work that entangles our quest for love and relationship with science and mathematics.   Fear not, his clever dialogue is both instructive and engaging - to the point that you begin to think you are going to walk away being able to solve the TSP (Traveling Salesperson Problem, for those of you who might know).

Karl Miller (Elliot) and Aubrey Dollar (Molly) are thoroughly engaging and believable as a pair of slightly awkward, mostly normal, and very intelligent grad students (clothes both on and off) engaged in their respective quests of computer science (Elliot) and biology (Molly) - or is it a quest for everlasting love?   Or both?  Is the answer out there just waiting to be solved for?  Or do you just take the chances as they come and jump in hoping it till work?

One very awkward moment near the end of the play arrives at a time in the play when both the relationships AND the math/science "blow up".  The play literally stops, and two other characters come out and talk to the audience to allegedly "stall for time" while the show takes a technical break to "reboot the board".  Quite unusual - and by a poll of various people who said they knew - it was part of the play - not a real glitch.   Symbolic, perhaps.  Thoroughly distracting - yes.   I wanted to be talking about so many other aspects of the play afterwards but just couldn't leave this "moment" alone.

bottom of the world

A new work by Lucy Thurber (last Atlantic production was Scarcity with Kristen Johnson and Michael T. Weiss) made it's debut on Stage 2 at the Atlantic Theatre Company this past week.  Bottom of the World explores the cycle of life and death via a complex set of family relationships and visions of an "alternate family" as seen through both the author of a recently published book (the dead sister) and the reader (the surviving sister).    What made it slightly more complex was that the story was told through the eyes of a family that had two brothers, rather than the two sisters and each had parents - all of course played by the same actors in parallel.  Yikes!  Attention must be paid.

There are a few facts I wish we knew up front - such as why one sister was black and one was white.  Blind casting, i thought?  Alas, they had two separate fathers.  In the meantime, I had already noticed that the brothers who paralleled the sisters were also white and black.  Then somewhere in the middle we learn the one sister was a lesbian.  There was no parallel gay character, but indeed other concepts ran in parallel.  Focus, Focus!

I will note there was some delicious talent in this one.  Intelligent writing, for sure (Lucy) - but I'd go on to say a few stand-outs were cast - Crystal A. Dickinson (Abagail) and Aubrey Dollar (Susan/Dana), Brendan Griffin (Josh) and Brandon J. Dirden (Ely).   Kudos to the set designer,  Walt Spangler.  I think all those 2x4's that were the set were supposed to represent the tangled roots of a tree turned upside down (just like the play's logo).  Sometimes your life can get turned upside down - is what I took away as the symbolism.  The musicians (a banjo and a fiddle) lingering up in the tree (the roots, i suppose) provided tasteful and melodic background and mood music - just like the birds would.  Nice touch.

Woven throughout the tapestry of this play is the theme that we should all notice the ones we love (i.e pay attention!) and love the ones we notice.   Well, I noticed this play on-line today - and I really loved it.  I hope you get the chance too -  before it's too late.