“This” at Boulder Ensemble Theater Company
A review by Lisa Bornstein
Ghandia Johnson, Jessica Robblee, Josh Hartwell
Twenty years after “Reality Bites” comes “This,” Melissa James Gibson’s popular Gen-X take on middle age. In the current production by Boulder Ensemble Theater Company, the play incisively sizes up truths both timely and timeless, while also settling into some all-too-familiar dramatic ruts.
In their late 30s, Gibson’s urban, middle-class characters are finding themselves facing life with “a sudden sense of urgency mixed with intense exhaustion.” Merrell (Ghandia Johnson) and Tom (Michael Morgan) are tensely navigating life with a newborn and more than just their nerves are frayed. They spend much of their time with their close friend, Alan (Josh Hartwell), and, at the story’s center, Jane (Jessica Robblee), exhausted and walled off a year after losing her husband.
Michael Morgan
Scattered throughout the play are bits of insight, lyrically phrased, and tiny, telling details that define character: a woman obsessed with Brita, one character correcting another’s spelling. There’s the depiction of an annoying neighbor: “She’s destabilizing because just when you’ve written her off, she’ll tell you your sweater’s cute” and the idea of living being an existential state of exhaustion.
Josh Hartwell and Jessica Robblee
Director Christy Montour-Larson brings forth some affecting performances, particularly from Robblee, whose wound is covered by the thinnest of scabs, and Morgan, who becomes hilarious in his fury. Hartwell turns a stock character (the single, gay, best friend) into someone who transcends expectations.
In a longstanding theatrical tradition, that single, gay, best friend gets all the best lines. Where Gibson’s play – and Hartwell’s performance – is more original is in making him an emotional anchor, rather than a service to the straight characters. Alan is a mnemonist, a man who makes his living demonstrating his amazing memory on talk shows. He is a middle-aged party trick, and he has begun to realize that witticisms and shallow celebrity aren’t particularly fulfilling. His desire for a life of meaning gives a greater resonance to all the proceedings, and when he tells Jane, “Lots of things will be all right, and there’s no reason this couldn’t be one of them,” it is both a comfort and a fervent wish.
This, at Boulder Ensemble Theater Company
All this beauty, poignancy and wit is offset by some clunky theatrical clichés and conventions. Like a “Friends” reunion, the play is set around middle-aged adults who spend all their time together, a set-up that works on sitcoms but seldom in real life. A party game at the play’s start is a contrivance to reveal Jane’s tragedy, but it works too hard for too few laughs and too little illumination. The production (or the script’s) biggest pitfall is escalating emotions too quickly; the drama is unearned, and an extramarital liaison feels both pedestrian and melodramatic. As Merrell, Johnson in particular is operating at a heightened emotional temperature. This may reflect the psyche of a new mother, but it also feels disconnected from the tone of the rest of the cast. There is a great deal to like about “This,” both in its performances and its observations of life for a demographic slice that has so often been portrayed as aimless children. Just as its generation has so often been (unfairly) accused of, the play does not quite live up to its full potential.
