Uneven “THIS” a miss at TheaterWorks

HARTFORD — TheaterWorks’ production of the Off-Broadway play “THIS” seems an appropriate show for TheaterWorks, as Hartford’s Off-Broadway theater.
Under the outstanding artistic direction of Steve Campo, they bring shows to town that are cutting edge and often deal with painful realities in our crazy world that are meaningful and relevant.
Sadly, “THIS” isn’t one of them.
The play, written by Melissa James Gibson and directed by Amy Saltz, feels like a kitchen sink, grab bag of a play, with a 30-something group of New Yorkers who are dealing with interpersonal relationships in what can most charitably be described as uneven.
It starts out hopefully, with a gathering of friends hosted by Tom and Marrell, new parents played by Clark Carmichael and Tijana T. Ricks. Their regular buds, the young widow Jane (Beth Wittig) and gay friend Alan (Andrew Rein) are hanging around the IKEA-meets-flea-market bohemian living room, awaiting the arrival of handsome French stranger, Doctor Jean-Pierre (Maxime De Todedo).
They play a game where one person, a reluctant Jane, leaves the room and reenters, trying to guess a story. But there is no story. Each person responds to her questions with a “yes” if her question ends in a consonant, a “no” if a vowel, and “maybe” if it ends in a “y.”
The game starts out amusingly enough, until it isn’t funny, which can be pretty much said for the play as a whole.
The answers to why this play doesn’t work can be found within the play itself.
At one point, the witty and sardonic Alan asks if they have ever started to tell a story and then realized half way through the story that it isn’t very interesting, but have to continue on?
That turns out to be a perfect description of this play, that drags on in the first act, only to continue to drag in Act II.
There are some salient and promising revelations in “THIS,” such as when Alan observes that when people ask what someone does for a living, they are really interested in how much money they make, and if they would be a good addition to their lives based on their income.
Too much of the time, however, the play doubles back on itself, and undermines the previous points that seemed to be so important.
Jane, the pretty one according to Alan, says she can’t stand it when someone says they are sorry.
Fair enough, but then at the end she spends what seems like 10 minutes repeatedly saying “I’m sorry” to her sleeping daughter whom we never meet, and whom I can only hope wasn’t just pretending to be asleep, listening to some pretty awful confessions.
I thought she hated saying “I’m sorry?”
On the plus side, I don’t think I have ever seen such an inventive, well-conceived, and complex set design at TheaterWorks as they have here, by TheaterWorks’ regular Luke Hegel-Cantarella. He uses sliding runners to bring in a bar scene, Jane’s apartment door, and back to Tom and Marrell’s living room, which work well considering the limited space of the intimate TheaterWork’s stage.
Marrell’s jazz singing is also a nice part of the show, and I liked what little I saw of Jean-Pierre.
Near the end, Jean-Pierre says that their lives and problems, compared to third-world issues in Africa, are “dinky,” undermining what little importance there was in their interactions, and making it all seem like a huge waste of an evening.
I have a test that I use for films as well as plays that I thought about while enduring this show. When I am having a difficult time caring about anyone on the stage, I imagine a surreal moment, in the same vein as Luis Buñuel’s film, “The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” where, out of nowhere, some stranger does away with them all.
I’m sorry to say, I wouldn’t say, “I’m sorry.”

THIS

one Star
Theater: TheaterWorks
Location: 233 Pearl St. Hartford.
Production: Written by Melissa James Gibson. Directed by Amy Saltz. Set design by Alexander Dodge. Costume design by Toni-Leslie James. Lighting design by Peter Kaczorowski. Original music and sound design by John Gromada.
Running time: 2 ½ hours with one intermission.
Show Times: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. The show will run through Feb. 27.
Tickets: Unassigned seating is $40; $50 on Friday and Saturday nights. Center reserved seats $12.50 extra. $12.50 student rush tickets at showtime with valid identification (subject to availability). For tickets call 860-527-7838 or visit their website at www.theaterworkshartford.org.
ACTOR…CHARACTER
Beth Wittig … Jane
Clark Carmichael … Tom
Tijuana T. Ricks … Marrell
Andrew Rein … Alan
Maxime De Toledo … Jean-Pierre