by Joel Elkins~

Generally, after seeing a play, my first thought as a reviewer is “Now, what am I going to write about this?” I sit at the computer and the blank screen stares back at me while I resist the urge to channel my inner teenager and say, “Yeah, I guess it was okay.”

However, after seeing Seascape with Sharks and Dancer at the Studio/Stage, I am struggling to keep within my self-imposed 1000-word limit.

The story is quite simple. A man (played by Matthew Hannon), while walking along the beach one night, sees a naked woman (played by Christine Weatherup) out in the water and pulls her to safety. He takes her back to his place where they strike up a conversation and eventually a relationship. On the surface, the two have nothing in common. He is a laid-back and bookish writer who is working at a library while his burgeoning manuscript cools in the fridge. (No, that’s not a metaphor.) She is a free spirit who is running from her family and everyone else who tries to get close. She is at times demanding, brash and insulting and clearly intent on pushing all of his buttons. He, to her chagrin, refuses to react. She is clearly disturbed (we get her version of the cause in Act II), saying things that we would call inappropriate by society’s standards. And she clearly has no problem straddling the line between fact and fiction. But apparently, he is smitten with her, and, despite her better judgment, her with him.

The underlying question in the play (and one explicitly asked in the director’s notes in the program) is: what do these people see in each other? The friend with whom I went dismissed the question with a simple “she’s crazy and he’s a masochist.” Well, if that’s all there was to it, I could look forward to another tough battle with my computer screen. But the following morning, I was thinking about this “explanation” as I was getting dressed when I happened to catch a rerun of Dave Chappelle on “Inside the Actor’s Studio.” I wasn’t really listening to what he was saying because I was more intrigued that he would show up to an interview stoned. But at one point he said something so on point, it got my attention. He said (in reference to what I didn’t quite make out): “The worst thing you can call someone is crazy, it’s dismissive. I don’t understand this person, so they’re crazy.”

I immediately saw his point. While it’s easy to dismiss someone as crazy, no one wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, “I’m crazy, so I think I’ll do something irrational today.” People do things for a reason, as warped or counterproductive as that reasoning may be. People get together and stay together because they fulfill some need in each other. What these two characters fulfill in each other is definitely a question, but in my opinion a rather simple one to answer: I would say she’s looking for stability, almost immutability, while he’s apparently attracted to her spontaneity and vivaciousness. For me, the more interesting question is: Is he simply exhibiting low self esteem by putting up with her abuse or amazing maturity by seeing through it?

In fact, the play by Don Nigro is thought-provoking and well-written and raises many interesting questions about human nature and interpersonal relationships. Unfortunately, the production did not do it justice. In a two-person play, acting is critical, and from the opening moments, I knew we were in trouble. As a caveat, I must say I am not an actor, but I know good acting when I see it. Good actors make you forget they are reading lines. They make you forget they are not the characters they are pretending to be. They appear to be not only reciting lines, but formulating ideas as they speak, as people do in real life. People in real life generally vary their speech patterns, pausing when thinking of a difficult word or trying to express a difficult concept. They don’t know instinctively when the other person has finished speaking and when they are supposed to start. In fact they often don’t know when they themselves are finished speaking. Too much of the dialogue in Seascape had the “I’m done with my line; now it’s your turn” feeling, which unfortunately cast an amateurish sheen on the entire production. But as much of the fault must lie with director Benjamin Haber Kamine as with the cast.

That being said, I must say the acting did improve as the play went on, to the point where it almost redeemed itself on the strength of the final few scenes. However, I believe this script in the hands of two master thespians could be an amazingly powerful experience. Whether or not such a performance would tend to answer the play’s fundamental questions or simply pose additional ones, that’s a trip I wouldn’t mind taking.

Now I’ve reached the end, and I didn’t even have a chance to comment on the lighting by Matthew Brian Denman or set design by Geronimo Guzman, so I’ll just say: “I guess it was okay.”

Seascape With Sharks and Dancer is performed Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. through March 5, 2010. There will be two Sunday shows at 8 pm on February 21 and 28.

Studio/Stage is located at 520 N. Western (two blocks south of Melrose).

Ticket prices: $25.00 (Students: $20.00)

Reservations online at www.sharksanddancer.com/tickets or by phone at (800) 838-3006.