My overall impression
What you have here is an extremely well-directed, well-acted, well-designed play, and everyone involved deserves substantial credit for that. The gutsy performances by Chris Illing and Michal Sinnott are worth the price of admission alone, and Arthur Keng is mesmerizing in his one scene.
But this is a play we’ve seen before. It’s a more insane version than most variations—and apparently completely sincere—but it’s one of these four-character New York plays about horrible, screwed-up people being horrible to each other (for an example of how to do this thing well, see Bekah Brunstetter’s Mine.) Introverted, neurotic Lil is married to emotionally abusive but financially stable Bri, who begins a bizarre, brutal affair with Sis looking for something real. There are two scenes in which playwright Tommy Smith rises above the seen-it-before—one where Lil visits Arthur Keng’s Grig so she can feel something real (pain) and the scene in which Bri and Sis begin their affair. You will never think of a certain animated TV show the same way again.
Smith lacks the courage of his convictions however, going so far as to put a defense of hope & optimism in the most dislikeable character in the play, Bri, who rants about how he met some writer, and this writer wrote a horrible script about horrible people. I see what you did there, Mr. Smith.
Let me be clear: you should absolutely see this play if it makes Best of Fringe—which it deserves to. Everyone involved is excellent. Caitlin Hart is clearly a director to watch. But one would really love to see this set of actors and director take on something that’s not an oh-god-life-is-horrible play.
