Tangled Web

Dark Play or Stories for Boys at Theatre Exile

by Mark Cofta

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Nov 25, 2008

Cory Frisco GET A SECOND LIFE: Nick (Robert DaPonte) invents "plausibly average" love interest Rachel (Katie Gould) to test his dim-witted buddy's Internet "gullibility threshold." Which is, apparently, high. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Is the Internet a gleaming conduit for our smart, fast 21st-century civilization, or merely a high-speed delivery system for scams and porn? Carlos Murillo's Dark Play or Stories for Boys confirms the latter. If you've long suspected that most Web-trollers are either deviant miscreants or lonely dopes, this well-staged story from Theatre Exile will confirm your fears.

"I make shit up," says Nick (Robert DaPonte), explaining his "Gullibility Threshold" theory through a disturbing tale of Internet deception. Inspired by a ridiculous caricature of a drama teacher who regales her students with stories of "dark play," in which some participants know they're acting and others do not, Nick finds Adam (Doug Greene, a convincingly dim-witted teen) online and invents "plausibly average" Rachel, enticing Adam to fulfill his dream of falling in love.

Murillo's story unfolds gradually, despite DaPonte's eerie portrayal of unrepentant Nick, leaving time to wonder why all Murillo's plays have two titles (can't he make up his mind?) and why this is a story for boys, not girls (especially given the high-profile prosecution of an adult woman for a similar online deception that led to a teen girl's suicide).

Fortunately, Deborah Block's sharp production distracts us from the questions Murillo avoids. Katie Gould fascinates as Nick's creation, shaped by Adam's "matrix of assumptions" about his online love. Krista Apple and Dave Johnson are superb (and often hilarious) as a variety of briefly seen, vividly drawn characters — save that drama teacher, who unwittingly gives Nick permission for his lies. Adam Riggar's set is appropriately bland and plastic, and Krista Billings' lighting plus Doug Smullens' video design suggest cyberspace well.

Suspense builds when Nick begins to see Rachel as a real, separate personality; he feels jealous and inserts himself as Rachel's brother, even arranging to meet lust-blinded Adam. While we've heard many cautionary tales about people with GTs of 11 (on a 1-10 scale) like Adam, one can't help but wonder how the games change when most chat-room participants are nihilistic predators like Nick. That might be a great play.

Murillo ascribes more emotional clarity to e-mails and instant messages than exists, with no sense of online language's slang and clichés (except one "LOL"). The play only glimpses the "murky recesses of human nature" it claims to expose, and can't entice us to care about its boys. What we gain is a familiar warning: Creeps dwell in the dark, where only fools venture.

(m_cofta@citypaper.net)

Dark Play or Stories for Boys | Through Dec. 7, Theatre Exile at Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, 2111 Sansom St., 215-922-4462, theatreexile.org

Holidays Ex Machina
Get Me to the Show on Time
All Smiles
Diamond in the Ruff
One-Two Punch
Play on, Players
Schmucks
Toni Morrison