Thinking of You

In Elizabeth Dupr�'s new play "Thinking of You," presented by the Boston Actors Theater, the protagonist, Yvette (Drew Linehan), is a hoarder - not of junk, but of people. But before you envision some kind of "Silence of the Lambs" scenario, Yvette doesn't kill the people she hoards. She simply doesn't let them die.

The play takes place at The Hawthorne Center on Rogers Island in Boston Harbor. This particular weekend, the Pierce Greeting Card Company (part of the Pembrook Publishing family) is having their annual corporate teambuilding retreat. Unbeknownst to most of the employees this is also an opportunity for management to look for people to layoff.

Yvette, one of the employees at the retreat, is making the most of the experience by starting off the morning with a good breakfast, donuts and mimosas. Joining her at breakfast is one of those she hoards -- her brother Jack, who died in a freak accident outside Fenway Park years before. You get it: Yvette hoards dead people.

"Thinking of You" is a light, dark comedy, and it's especially fun if you're from Boston, because the humor is wicked local. For instance, when Jack sees the donuts and mimosas he says, "Are these [events] always catered by Dunks and Kappy's?" And when Yvette talks to her coworker and latest crush Tiff (Jennifer Reddish), she says, "I know you're one of those people who came to this town as a student and stayed, but those of us who grew up here, we tend not to open up all that easy. We suppress and we drink; that is the Boston way. The only time I ever saw my parents cry was when the ball went through Buckner's legs in game six."

The strength of "Thinking of You" is in its plotting. From the surprise revelation in the beginning to the thoroughly satisfying d�nouement, the play is finely structure comedy. And this is something that many new playwrights struggle with. But the play also has moments in it that make it more than just a good time.

The play starts with what seems like your typical cast of corporate stereotypes. The least present of these seems to be Nico, a second rate sycophant to the number one salesman, Jim. That is until an unfortunate event involving a pretzel takes Jim off the island and his "stellar" title away from him. I was worried about how Nico would survive without Jim. But he actually evolves into one of the most interesting characters in the play. I never expected that Nico would go through his particular journey or end up showing such moments of human complexity. (I certainly wish that other characters, like the technology integration manager Kathleen and the character called Senior Management, could have given me similar surprises.)

Much of Nico's humanity has to do with the actor playing him. While other actors made flat and uninteresting choices that let us know, all too clearly, what character-type they were portraying, David Lucas has a marvelous capacity for understatement. Nico, like the other characters in this play, is stuck in a work-a-day world that masks its sincerity in Tweets, and he's searching for something real under all of the bullshit.

The thought of losing your junk, like the thought of losing your job is terrifying. And the characters in this play must learn that it isn't easy, but it's necessary to let these things go.

Other actors have great moments as well. They transcend the buoyant fun of this dark comedy and evoke moments that are genuinely thought provoking. Jennifer Reddish, as Tiff, recounts her first job "in front of a computer." It was data entry and she could, "Just shut off [her] mind and type." That was until she realized that each of the codes she entered related to a real human being with a real problem that she couldn't do anything about by simply putting it into a database.

Now I'm not asking for theatrical spectacle, but a little more attention to design would have greatly improved this production. There's a difference between Spartan theatre and carelessness in scenic design. Sure all you need to make theatre happen is "two boards and a passion," but when you fill your set with furniture, which is clearly the same furniture that is in the lobby, we wonder if we are watching a performance or a rehearsal. If you don't want us to question the style of something on stage, simply paint it black. Otherwise we will question a production's artistic choices, and when they are poor, or thrown together, they will draw us out of the action of the play.

Other staging issues were also a concern. Why are toilet paper rolls and booze bottles always on stage? The paper tubes were presented in the first act as a kind of spatial puzzle that was never adequately solved. And with them always in sight, I found myself working on the puzzle throughout the entire play. In the second act, Yvette is delighted that Tiff has a bottle of Jack Daniels in her backpack and you want to say, "Look behind you. There's an entire bar full of alcohol. What's the big deal?" The lighting did not define the playing areas distinctly enough, because even though the setting changes, every location is still in view. But having everything on stage all the time also had another effect. It was almost like hoarding elements of every scene that taken place, because even though the events of these scenes had passed, we were somehow unable to let them go.

"Thinking of You" runs through Apr. 20 at Boston Playwright's Theater, 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA. For more information, visit The Boston Actors Theater website.