Is it a punishable offense not to like someone? Tony (Carlos Bustamante) thinks so. When a friendly fix-up with New York writer Theresa (Lucy Newman-Williams) fizzles after two dates, Tony takes the rejection to pathological extremes in Rebecca Gilman’s disquieting “Boy Gets Girl.” In short, he becomes a stalker.
Tony starts off by sending flowers to Theresa, which everyone in her magazine office finds cute. This escalates into voice-mail-clogging calls to her home and office. What begins as an annoyance quickly turns menacing as Tony begins trailing Theresa. When his pleadings turn violent, a police officer (Adele Robey) is called in.
This crazy intrusion wrecks the life of the supremely assured Theresa. She becomes frightened and self-doubting, wondering if something she did triggered Tony’s psychosis. Even her beloved work is affected; a piece-of-cake interview with Les Kennkat (John Dow), a Russ Meyer-like movie director with an unabashed love for pneumatic females, turns into a snarl-fest as she is swamped by her increasingly negative feelings toward men.
Finally, her carefully built life in Manhattan — Yankees games, swanky benefits at the Museum of Modern Art, interviews with the creme de la creme of New York literati — is ruined by Tony. On police advice, she is forced to move across the country and change her name, essentially giving up her identity and all she has worked for just so she can live a quasi-normal life again.
“Boy Gets Girl” is a peculiar hybrid, part women’s-issue-of-the-week diatribe and part dissection of some rather interesting ideas. In its treatment of the stalker, the play recalls those reactionary, tear-jerky “Lifetime” movies Theresa disparages at one point in the action. It is all one-sided and predictable, with Tony being a vehicle for the play’s stand on stalking (really, is anyone pro stalking?) and not a realized character in his own right.
Miss Newman-Williams’ beautifully tempered performance as Theresa goes far in conveying the creepiness and terror inherent in such a situation. She could have been a shrieking mess, but Miss Newman-Williams’ control of the character gives us penetrating glimpses into the inner workings of a woman who lives mostly from the neck up. In contrast, Tara Giordano is a kick as the flouncy Harriett, a woman who lives for pleasure and treats.
“Boy Gets Girl” could be dismissed as a one-track “issue play,” but Miss Gilman introduces some disturbing aspects. Theresa, in some respects, opens up as a result of her ordeal. Her haughty intellectual barriers broken down, she strikes up an endearing friendship with the old roue Les and gets to know her menschy colleagues Howard (Jim Jorgensen) and Mercer (Eric Singdahlsen) on a deeper level.
So violence and vulnerability bring out the best in women? That’s what Miss Gilman seems to be saying, however inconveniently. There also is an intriguing insight offered by Mercer, a fellow writer, concerning the thin line between romantic and obsessive. In Hollywood movies, the flowers and the persistence Tony shows in the beginning would be rewarded — he would get the girl.
Stalking pays off in the Tinseltown tradition, but in life, it gets you a restraining order.
These ideas add spark to “Boy Gets Girl,” which seems overlong and talky, especially by the second act. The reiteration and single trajectory of the plot is not helped by numerous scene changes, most of which seem to take a lifetime. The acting also is inconsistent, ranging from barely competent to lighting up the stage.
High marks go to Theater Alliance for bringing Miss Gilman’s work to Washington audiences because plays such as “Spinning Into Butter” reveal her to be a provocative and graceful playwright. Its production of “Boy Gets Girl,” however, reduces this contemporary nightmare to the merely prosaic.
**1/2
WHAT: “Boy Gets Girl” by Rebecca Gilman
WHERE: Theater Alliance, 1365 H St. NE
WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Through May 23.
TICKETS: $20 to $23
PHONE: 800/494-8497
MAXIMUM RATING FOUR STARS
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