by Joel Elkins~

I’m convinced that if WindChimes, the new play by playwright John Dubiel making its world premiere at the Company of Angels, were analyzed by a psychiatrist, it would be diagnosed as having a bipolar disorder. A cardiologist would find arrhythmia. A topographer would call it mountainous. The play is uneven, is all I’m saying. The symptoms of this condition, however, cannot be isolated to one area. It pervades the acting, direction and script.

The premise is fairly simple. Estranged son Jake (Tripp Picknell) comes home after a long absence, because his sister (Anne McCarthy) has invited him for a surprise visit, hoping it would help mend differences, but all it does is remind everyone how those differences arose. He is greeted with unveiled animus by his father (Fred Ochs), undiluted love by his mother (Melinda deKay) and a strange mixture of the two by his recently widowed brother James (James A. Walsh). James’ teenaged son Jason (Daniel Amerman), an aspiring writer, is simply in awe of the uncle he hasn’t seen in years who also happens to be a semi-successful author. The fact that Jake’s Los Angeles girlfriend (Amielynn Abellera) doesn’t quite fit in with their “quaint” Massachusetts sensibilities doesn’t help matters. The ensuing few days expose rifts and deeply-guarded secrets.

WindChimes seems eerily familiar to me, perhaps because I’d seen it all before, without even having to leave L.A. “Prodigal son comes home to disrupt/shake up the staid/suffocating home life of the pious son” was carried out masterfully in Parasite Drag at the Elephant Theatre. “Mature-beyond-his-years teenager has to put his rebellion on hold in order to keep his family from falling apart” was done much better in Hermetically Sealed at the Skylight Theatre. “Family laden with so many years of secrets and unresolved conflict that they’ve forgotten how to listen to each other” is a persistent theme nailed by The Little Flower of East Orange also at the Elephant Theatre. WindChimes touches on all these themes, but doesn’t add anything original to the genre.

(As for the title of the play, the wind chimes of the elderly next-door neighbor apparently represent the disturbance Jake has caused in the family. They drive dad crazy, while no one else seems to mind them much, mom even enjoying them. Late in the play, Jake attempts to disarm the chimes by removing the center piece, but to everyone’s surprise, they continue to make noise. The metaphor is self-evident.)

The acting is, for the most part, very good, but, at times, annoying bad. I suppose that is appropriate, because so is the script. It insists on methodically setting up the play’s premise in the first two minutes, forcing the characters to mouth stilted dialogue and leaving nothing to the imagination. One can almost picture the playwright checking off from a list what he needs to explain before the action can begin. Once he goes through these motions, however, he shows sparks of real talent, developing three-dimensional characters and realistically engaging them. But just when the play begins to settle into a comfortable rhythm, a character will say or do something utterly unrealistic in an obvious attempt to move the action to its next scheduled stop.

John Miyasaki’s direction, not surprisingly, is similarly inconsistent. Most of the character interaction is well-done, but every so often it will be completely off the mark. For example, after seeing his grandparents bantering with each other, clearly showing all the signs of two people in love and comfortable in its reciprocity, Jason has to be reassured by his Aunt Elisa that “some people just demonstrate their love differently.” Young Jason’s confusion makes no sense unless the exchange he witnesses looks like true confrontation, and not playful teasing. On the positive side, the scene changes, in which the stage lights are dimmed while the characters enter and exit in character, are original and effective.

Art Betanzos’ set – a scale model of which can be seen in the lobby – is quite realistic, down to the 2002-era computer monitor. (Isn’t it amazing how we can pinpoint the time period almost to the year simply by the electronics?) Bosco Flanagan designed the lights, and Karla Contreras designed the myriad costume changes.

Unfortunately, WindChimes doesn’t rise to the level of really good, yet can’t be considered altogether bad. Instead, it suffers the unfortunate and largely undeserved fate of being forgettable.

WindChimes plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 7 pm through March 18, 2012.

Company of Angels is located in the third floor of the Alexandria, 501 S. Spring St in downtown

Ticket prices: $20.00 (senior, student and group discounts available)

Reservations online www.companyofangels.org, at (323) 382-5169, or by email at xmoreno@companyofangels.org.