Review - A Body Of Water: Hell is Other People's Existential Theatre

Lee Blessing's plays have always shown a wonderful knack for vivid story-telling (A Walk In The Woods, Cobb), but in his new Off-Broadway offering, A Body Of Water, the author is intentionally not telling us the story. Likewise, I won't be completely telling you the story of why I found the piece, on the whole, a letdown, because to do so would reveal too many details best explained on the playwright's timeline. But if I found fault with the play itself, director Maria Mileaf's Primary Stages production is a fine mounting.

Taking place in a secluded summer home, set designer Neil Patel does gorgeous work providing a simple but artfully décored living room surrounded by three museum-worthy paintings that depict the lush greenery and placid blue water of the outside. Lighting designer Jeff Croiter completes the beautiful picture with the gradually changing appearance of the environment as morning turns to afternoon.

Michael Christopher and Christine Lahti play a man and a woman who wake up in this lovely setting one morning having no idea who they and what they're doing there. After considering the various possibilities (Are they married? Is one of them a guest at the other's home?) and trying several methods to jar their memories (like seeing each other naked) they are joined by a younger woman (Laura Odeh) who seems to know exactly who they are, but she's not immediately saying.

While the premise is certainly grabbing at first, particularly if you're a fan of existentialist works like Sartre's No Exit, the ninety minute piece becomes more monotony than mystery as conversations twirl in circles, possibilities are brought up and struck down and the play trudges along to an ending that is surprising only because you wouldn't expect it to be so familiar and predictable. The actors and director do well and the dialogue has its amusing moments and interesting points but the play is done in by the author's failure to stimulate any prolonged interest in the situation or those involved.

But damn, I'd love to spend a long weekend on that set.