A Choice Production

The Chosen -- Playhouse on Park -- Thru Feb. 14

Jordan Wolfe and Joshua Whitson. All photos by Rich Wagner

Some plays are like tsunamis – the power (and tension) builds and builds until there is a final assault on the emotions and, often, the stage is littered with bodies (think Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet). Then there are the plays that end up being nothing more than stagnant ponds. The Chosen, which recently opened at Playhouse on Park in West Hartford, is neither tsunami nor algae-laden pond, it is a slow lapping of waves that ultimately mesmerizes and satisfies. As deftly directed by Dawn Loveland, this dramatization of Chain Potok’s 1967 novel, with its superb ensemble cast, is theater that, like an oft-told family story, evokes, upon reflection, ruminations on the choices we all make as we wend our way through life.

The very nature of choice demands that something is gained and something is lost. If not, then it is not a choice. The process is often painful, as it is for Danny Sanders (Joshua Whitson) and Reuven Malter (Jordan Wolfe), two young men living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during and immediately after World War II. They are the sons, respectively, of Reb Saunders (Damian Buzze) and Reuven Malter (David Gautschy), two Jewish men, the former a Hasidic rabbi, the latter a scholar of a modern orthodox bent, who have different approaches to parenting.

The play is framed by a narrator, a mature Reuven (David Gautschy) who provides the initial exposition and comments on the tensions that arise between these two families, tensions that deal with how an older generation communicates with the younger and, on a larger scale, what it means to be Jewish, a question fraught with agonizing imponderables given the Holocaust, the rise of Zionism and the attendant drive to create the State of Israel.

Dan Shor, Jordan Wolfe, David Gautschy, Joshua Whitson and Damian Buzzerio

The two boys meet on a baseball field (an American melting pot metaphor) and there is an immediate antipathy. This antipathy morphs into a growing friendship that is challenged by their antithetical upbringings, for Reuven’s father is outgoing and delights in talking with his son, while Danny’s father has chosen silence as a means of teaching his son certain lessons about life (including silence as the only response that one can give to the horrific if one is still to believe in an all-loving God).

Reuven is to become a professor of mathematics; Danny is to become a rabbi and eventually the leader of the Hasidic sect that his father shepherded from the European maelstrom to the safer shores of America. Thus, the play deals with choices, choices fathers have made for their sons, and the choices that the sons make as they realize what consumes the heart cannot be denied.

Playhouse on Park is an intimate, thrust-stage theater that presents staging challenges, challenges that have been ably met by Loveland, scenic designer Christopher Hoyt, lighting designer Aaron Hochheiser and sound designer Joel Abbot (who deftly moves a scene from a home to Madison Square Garden through use of reverberation).

Loveland has her cast in constant movement, utilizing all available space from stage left to stage right. The blocking is often balletic, for the actors’ movements accentuate and reinforce the dialogue and the emotions being expressed. As the actors move, Hochheiser’s lighting design, never intrusive, subtly directs the audience’s attention and creates appropriate moods. This is all done against Hoyt’s minimalist set, which consists of an upstage wooden framework with an inscribed arch and several platforms, two of which, stage right and left, support desks that define the two familial worlds in which Reuven and Danny exist.  

Novels and plays unfold in different ways, and this adaptation by the author and Aaron Posner has some inherent developmental problems, for there is a need to provide a great deal of exposition. Thus, the play is somewhat slow to get out of the gate, but once it does it inexorably draws in the audience, and this drawing in is much to the credit of the cast, for each actor seems born to play the role he has been given. You believe that Buzzerio is a man haunted by the Holocaust, a devout man who comes to question the nature of a God who would allow depravities to occur, yet clings to his beliefs and has chosen to communicate with his son through silence. You believe that Shor is a man driven by the passion to never allow what has occurred to happen again, and who has chosen to communicate with his son through Socratic dialogue. You believe that Wolfe, as Reuven, and Whitson, as Danny, are two young men seeking to understand who they are and what they wish to become, and that their friendship might help them achieve that goal, and you believe that Gautschy is an older Reuven (amongst other characters that he ably portrays) who sees events in a different perspective, one that puts actions taken and motives (and needs – and failures) in perspective.

There is something deeply, quietly, satisfying about this production, perhaps because you get the sense, as the evening unfolds, that the actors and the production team all found a way to get on the same page, to agree about the “gestalt” of the play. At moments, you might find yourself leaning forward, a physical manifestation of the draw of the play. The story, ultimately, compels such movement, as does the acting.

The Chosen runs through Feb. 14. For tickets or more information call 860-523-5900, X10, or go to www.playhouseonpark.org

Feasting on the Famous

Buyer and Cellar -- TheaterWorks -- Thru Feb. 14

Tom Lenk as Alex More

Ever fantasize about someone? You project all of your needs, wants, desires and fears onto that person until they are no loner real, just a figment, or a fulmination, of your imagination. And then your fantasies take over, start drifting down the river of “What if?” Well that, apparently, is what playwright Jonathan Tolins experienced when he came to write “Buyer and Cellar,” directed by Rob Ruggiero, which recently opened at TheaterWorks up in Hartford.

The premise: Barbra Streisand has a subterranean mall of sorts in her home, a collection of “shops” that house a lot of what she has bought based on whim, design or desire. Okay, whatever floats her boat. If you’re rich and so inclined you can fill your swimming pool with champagne.

Now fixate on Barbra, and imagine that you are an out-of-work actor who gets a call from a former lover telling you there’s a job open in Malibu, the nature of which is unclear. You go for an interview and are questioned by, apparently, a somewhat masculine female named Sharon, the dragon at the gates. You get the job, only to find that you have been hired to be a sales person/curator in the “mall,” a mall with no customers save one, who may or may not appear. Oh, but she finally does, and you interact, you get to see the essence of the diva (and be abused by her). Ah, sheer bliss!

Okay, but what really happens in “Buyer and Cellar”? Well, that’s about it. Babs has a basement full of stuff, and actor Alex More (Tom Lenk – who was once involved in slaying vampires for fun and profit), gets to meet her and be abused by her. Trenchant stuff, right?

No. This one-man, one-trick pony show should have been a skit. At just under two hours, it is humorous at moments but ponderous at best and eventually becomes soporific.

Lenk gets to play multiple characters – some he pulls off with aplomb, others remain essential enigmas, chief among them the object of Tolins’ fascination – Barbra.

Let’s start with the good stuff. Alex is alerted about the job in Malibu by Vincent, with whom he has had a tryst or two while working at Disneyland. Vincent is all nervous energy, a poster boy for “Gays Are Us.” Okay, we’ll accept it, and “Vincent,” if nothing else, is certainly vivid, although the gay community may take exception to the characterization.

Then there’s Alex’s boyfriend, Barry. When Lenk channels Barry, which he does several times, the stage comes alive, for “Barry” is not only negatively obsessed with Barbra but worried, now that Alex has the job, that the diva might be attempting to steal his boyfriend. Thus, Barry delivers several soliloquies that can best be described as “Barbra-rants,” analyzing the woman’s career with an intensity that borders on the manic (and making some very fine points along the way).

Things get a little muddy when the playwright turns to Sharon and, of course, the focus of the show, Barbra. Sharon, as portrayed by Lenk, telegraphs her aggressiveness by opening and closing her legs and growling (woman as devourer!). It really isn’t a characterization, more a caricature, and it doesn’t work. And then there is Barbra, and here the evening falls apart, for Lenk gives us a person with a quasi-Brooklyn accent whose only mannerisms are to flick back her hair and stare disdainfully. It gets old very quickly.

And the interactions between the “sales clerk/docent” and the diva? Well, they border on the bizarre, for no apparent reason. One of the focal points is the diva wishing to buy a doll that she already owns. She haggles, she negotiates, she eventually shows up with an obviously bogus discount coupon. The implication is the diva is psychotic, floating on a sea only she can see. There are some laughs to be had here, initially, but the set-up soon becomes abstruse.

The basic problem with “Buyer and Cellar” is that it sets up the premise and then simply goes nowhere. There are no revelations, only snide comments, vague innuendoes and a lot of cheap shots, with some side trips to deal with some gay men’s fixations on soul-tormented female stars. Oh, the agony of it all! Oh, Judy and Maria – where are you when we need you? There are no true, rounded characters – even the actor Alex remains one-dimensional.

Yes, there are laughs along the way, but you come away feeling somehow cheap for having been a part of the evening. Why cheap? Well, the show is really a feeding frenzy, an exercise in “Let’s gobble up Barbra, let’s feast on her.” It’s fun, for the moment (perhaps), but as you drive home you feel diminished, somehow sullied, like back when you were one of the “in-girls” who ganged up on the “nerd” girl in high school, taunted her and teased her, and then, years later, suddenly realized what you had done, and that shouldn’t be what theater is all about.

“Buyer and Cellar” runs through February 14. For tickets or more information call 860-527-7838 or go to www.theaterworkshartford.org  

"The Lion" Sings at Night

"The Lion" -- Long Wharf Theater -- Through Feb. 7

Benjamin Scheuer

Fathers and sons – mothers and daughters. There seems to be a natural arc to the relationships. There is an initial bonding, a cleaving, followed, when the children are a certain age, by a pulling away, an antagonism that seems to be built into the species. Fathers stare at sons, mothers stare at daughters, and it is as if they are viewing each other from different planets. Finally, for most, there is a resolution, a re-acquaintance, as it were, on a different level, when sins are forgiven, foibles forgotten and resolution of the relationships occurs. But what if the father or mother passes away before this resolution can occur? Then it falls on the shoulders of the children to work it out for themselves. Such is the stuff of the enthralling “The Lion,” which recently opened at Long Wharf Theatre. It’s a one-man show that, primarily through music, deals with the three stages described above, a touching, heartfelt attempt to fit the pieces back together again, deal with life’s travails, and find peace with self.

Written and performed by a multi-talented Benjamin Scheuer, under the direction of Sean Daniels, the 70-minute show begins with Ben’s father, a mathematician and professor, giving his son a hand-made toy banjo, for Ben’s father is also a guitarist, and he and his young son bond by playing together. Yet all is not idyllic – there are shadows. His father finds fault with Ben for his lack of acumen in math, and when Ben asks his father to teach him to play the guitar “like him,” his father rejects the idea.

Ben’s story unfolds mostly through song, as Scheuer plays several different acoustic guitars and one electric guitar. The actor moves from chair to chair, picking up one guitar after another, and takes the audience through his life: his father’s death, the family’s move to Britain, Ben’s rejection of his family and return to the States, his first love and his battle with cancer.

All the while, it is the guitar – and songwriting – that keeps Ben attached to his father. Sometimes Scheuer sings, sometimes he just talks as he strums melodies, but the overall effect is mesmerizing, and the effect, or multiple effects, are enhanced wonderfully by Ben Stanton’s lighting design – as the mood shifts there are hues of blue, or red, and when Ben is facing his possible death from cancer he is lit by footlights that cast multiple shadows up onto the walls designed by Neil Patel that are reminiscent of those one might find in a cellar coffee house of the 60s.

And what of the show’s title, “The Lion”? Well, when Ben was a child his father would sing him a song about what it meant to be a lion, what was the source of the lion’s essence. Scheuer sings this song, as his father would have, early in the show, and he returns to it for his finale, creating one of the most moving moments in theater I have seen in quite a long time. It’s the same song, but it now carries greater weight, not only for Ben but also the audience, a weight that speaks to both the heart and the soul, and it’s sung with an energy and passion that vibrates throughout the theater. When Scheuer strums the final chord the audience couldn’t wait to leap up and deliver a standing ovation, one of the few that has been truly deserved in the past few seasons.

In an encore, Scheuer, a truly accomplished guitarist and a fine actor, repositions the capo halfway down on the fretboard of his guitar to recreate the sound of that hand-made banjo his father made for him so long ago and reprises the opening song about said banjo. It’s a wonderful moment. Scheuer, now without coat or tie, his shirt open, sleeves rolled up, shoes and socks off, has, over the 70 minutes, bared himself to the audience…and the audience responds. As for the resolution? Well, Ben finally comes to realize that his father didn’t want him to play the guitar “like him,” he wanted “me to play the guitar like me.”

“The Lion” is a wonderful reminder that theater, drama, and storytelling come in many forms. The benchmark is, and always have been, at the final curtain (in this case a blackout), has the audience been moved, has it experienced something that has spoken to its shared humanity? Scheuer’s story is not an uncommon one – perhaps we have all experienced a variation of it. That doesn’t mean it is banal. Scheuer has managed to merge his passion and his pain into a presentation that deals with the essence of being human and the challenges inherent in growing up.

As Scheuer stood to acknowledge the applause, going up on his bare toes, he motioned to the audience and said, “You’re wonderful.” From the audience, several voices cried out, “So are you.” That’s probably the best review of this show.

“The Lion” runs through February 7. For tickets or more information call 203-787-4282 or go to www.longwharf.org.

It Ain't Easy Being an Elf

The Santaland Diaries --- MTC Mainstage -- Thru Dec. 20

Matt Densky as "Crumpet"

So you come to New York with stars in your eyes and hopes of landing a role in one of your beloved soap operas. Oh, silly you! Out of work, you read an ad that announces that Macy’s – yes, the biggest store in the world – is hiring -- hiring elves for its Santaland. You say, “What hell!” and go for an interview and, wonder of wonders, you land the job. Be careful what you wish for.

Such is the premise of The Santaland Diaries, MTC’s Christmas offering running through December 20 at its new home in Norwalk. Directed by Kevin Connors, this slight, sarcastic take on the holidays appeals to the Scrooge in all of us. If you gag at the thought of eggnog, disdain electronic reindeer and whirling Santas on your front lawn, and wish that every copy of “Here Comes Santa Claus,” sung by Gene Autry, would magically disappear, then this is the show for you.

Santaland, based on a David Sedaris essay and adapted by Joe Mantello, is a one-man, single-set show that is basically an extended monologue, and as such, rests on the skills of the actor portraying Crumpet, the elf-name given to the hapless out-of-work wannabe actor. As Crumpet, Matt Densky fills the turned-up elf shoes admirably, although one might ask him to tone down the fey aspects of elfishness a bit –there’s just one too many strokes of the eyebrow.

However, the story Crumpet tells is entertaining, for he is exposed to all the mania and hype that the holidays can offer as he shuttles visitors into the magical world of Santaland, visitors who include youngsters terrified of Santa, visitors who wish to capture the moment on film as if it is a Cecil B. DeMille production, visitors (from New Jersey) who tell Santa they “Want a broad with big tits” for Christmas (Haw! Haw! Haw!), visitors who pee on Santa’s lap or toss soiled diapers into the decorations, and foreign visitors who are essentially clueless.

Then there are the Santas, a mixed lot of lost souls who handle the visitors with various degrees of kind attention or disdain.

Then there are Crumpet’s fellow elves, a varied lot of folks who would rather be anywhere else than in Macy’s dressed as elves (“I’m really an actress!”) and who, in devious and not so devious ways, deal with the long lines of Christmas shoppers who wish to whisper their consumer wishes into Santa’s ear.

Densky romps about the candy-cane set, designed by Carl Tallent, as he tells his tale of holiday woe, striking poses and evoking the various matrons, children and fathers who have come to worship at Santa’s boots. He is arch, snarky and, if nothing else, the essence of the put-upon, all-suffering Santa’s helper.

The only false note in the evening is its conclusion, for Sedaris – and Mantello – can’t help but succumb to the candy-cane-Miracle-on-34^th-Street-Christmas-in-Connecticut-Grinch-Rudolph-Scrooge-God-Bless-Us-All syndrome, for on the “last shopping day” Crumpet gets to work with a Santa who goes off script and asks questions of the visitors that evoke the “true spirit of Christmas.” It’s a maudlin touch that, I guess, is meant to bring a tear to the eye, but for those of us who would have written a different editorial to little Virginia when she asked if there really was a Santa Claus, it only confirms that you can’t keep cant out of Christmas.

God rest ye merry gentlemen, for the season will pass and all that will be left will be the credit card bills, a lot of torn wrapping paper and dead pine trees lining the curb. Oh come all ye faithful to the malls!

The Santaland Diaries runs through Dec. 20. For further information or ticket reservations call the box office at: 203.454.3883 or visit: www.musictheatreofct.com.

A Farcical "Twelfth Night"

"Twelfth Night" -- Connecticut Repertory Theatre -- Thru Dec. 19

Richard Ruiz (Sir Toby), Mark Blashford (Andrew Aguecheek),
Andrew Ramcharan Guilarte (Malvolio), Curtis Longfellow (Fabian) 

On the twelfth night of Christmas, the Lord of Misrule reigns supreme. Shakespeare apparently penned his “Twelfth Night” with that idea in mind and, as boarded by the Connecticut Repertory Theatre, this comedy of misrule and mistaken identities, under the direction of Victor Maog, gets a boisterous treatment.

The emphasis here is on broad comedy as Viola (Juliana  Bearse) and Sebastian (Jeff DeSisto), twins, are shipwrecked off the shore of Ilyria. Viola, for reasons never fully explained but, what the hell, decides to disguise herself as a man and serve Count Orsino (Darren Lee Brown), whom she immediately falls in love with.

Ah, but there are complications (of course), for Orsino is in love with Olivia (Madison Coppola), and sends Viola, now disguised as a man, to woo the fair maid in his place. Olivia promptly falls in love with the emissary. Oh, what is to be done?

Olivia, now smitten, must still deal with the misrule in her own household, most of it generated by Sir Toby Belch (Richard Ruiz), who is milking Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Mark Blashford) for all he is worth with the help of Fabian (Curtis Longfellow) while bedeviling Malvolio (Andrew Ramcharan Guilarte), Olivia’s steward.

The love triangle proceeds apace as Sir Toby, with the assistance of Maria (Arlene Bozich), Olivia’s gentlewoman, dreams up a plot to lure the pompous Malvolio to believe that his mistress is in love with him and wishes him to dress in yellow stocking, be cross-gartered, and smile a lot.

It all comes to a “Who are you, sir? Nay, who are you?” conclusion, with everyone satisfied, matched and married save for poor Malvolio, probably the most abused character in the Shakespearean canon.

Maog has taken the spirit of Twelfth Night to heart, and has apparently urged his actors to lay it on thick whenever possible. Purists may squirm a bit, but there’s no denying that his vision has been faithfully brought to life by a primarily young cast (lots of students up there on the stage) that eagerly cavorts and emotes.

Bearse, who had a bit of trouble with her moustache during the performance I saw, gives us an endearing Viola, although it’s a strain to believe that she could be mistaken for her brother (always a challenge when casting this play). However, she handles being “male” with aplomb, not an easy task.

However, there are some show-stealers up there, chief among them Blashford, as Aguecheek, Coppola as Olivia, and Guilarte as the much put upon Malvolio. Blashford is awkwardness personified, with one stocking up and the other down, all flailing legs and arms. It’s an engaging performance. And Coppola is mesmerizing as the love-struck Olivia, easily portraying her character’s rising passion and bringing it to a state of controlled dementia. Then there’s Guilarte as Malvolio. If you looked up the word “pomposity” in the dictionary, you’d probably find his picture. His extended cross-gartered scene is priceless.

Scenes are delineated by a set of doors (created by scenic designer Brett Calvo) that open and close and frame what looks like an upside-down birch tree (its symbolism escaped me). The flash and fury of the storm that opens the show is supplied by sound designer Abigail Golec and lighting designer Justin Poruban.

There’s an attempt to give a holiday overlay to the proceedings via two somewhat drab Christmas trees and some carols disguised as Medieval music. It all seems somewhat superfluous and forced, but, ‘tis the season.

Is this the definitive production of “Twelfth Night”? No, but it has many charms and, given Moag’s directorial intent, is of a piece. You may find Viola’s pawing of Orsino a bit much, and have to work hard at suspending your disbelief at certain moments, but there’s a lot of energy up there on the stage and some fine performances.

“Twelfth Night” runs through December 19. For tickets or more information call 860-486-2113 or go to www.crt.uconn.edu.

The Passage to Manhood

Passing Strange -- Playhouse on Park -- Thru Dec. 20

Darryl Jovan Williams (Narrator) and Eric R Williams (Youth).
All photos by Photo Rich Wagner

Over 90 years ago, Warner Brothers released “The Jazz Singer,” starring Al Jolson. It was the story of young Jakie Rabinowitz, who runs away from his home and his Jewish heritage to become a jazz singer. Ultimately, his father’s illness brings him back home, and he sings Kol Nidre as the spirit of his father hovers nearby.

Fast forward nine decades to Playhouse on Park in West Hartford and we have “Passing Strange,” directed by Sean Harris and exuberantly choreographed by Darlene Zoller, in which a young black man, simply called Youth (Eric R. Williams), a neophyte songwriter and musician, rejects his heritage and leaves his home and his mother in search of his Muse, traveling first to Amsterdam and then to Berlin, gaining experience and lessons about the heart, only to be called back to Los Angeles, his home, at the news of the death of his mother.

Famecia Ward and Eric R. Williams

If it worked once, why not again? This time around, the music is a blend of hip-hop and rock, and the young man’s experiences are a bit more physical and visceral, but the plot line, delivered by the Narrator (Darryl Jovan Williams), remains essentially the same. With book and lyrics by Stew and music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, this artistic coming of age odyssey (in German it’s called a Kunstlerroman) is nothing if not energetic. The cast of seven, including Famecia Ward, Karissa Harris, Skyler Volpe, J’royce and Garrett Turner, backed by a hard-driving quartet of musicians, is in almost constant motion throughout the entire two-plus hours of the show, generating enough energy to power most of the businesses on Park Road. The actors roam and romp freely about the thrust-stage area and often invade the house with a lot of in-your-face antics that both titillate and ignite the audience.

But…does this work? The answer is yes and no, for there are times when things get just a bit muddy and you are not sure what is happening or, more importantly, what is being sung. Though the musical is not entirely sung-through, there are many moments that can only be explicated by hearing the lyrics, sometimes a difficult task.

Garrett Turner, J'Royce, and Karissa Harris

However, there are other moments, and they are many, when things are crystal clear, as when our “hero” equates gospel with rock in the "Blues Revelation/Freight Train" number, or in the over-the top “It’s All Right” number, which is reprised after the curtain. There’s a humorous satire on French New Wave films and a lengthy Berlin sequence that has the Youth participating in a May Day riot (in which scenic designer Emily Nichols’ set is de-constructed to successfully evoke chaos), which leads to "The System Does All Kinds of Damage,” with Turner intimidating the audience with his character’s existential/nihilistic mantra. When it’s suggested by the inhabitants of a Berlin hostel that the Youth doesn’t belong because he hasn’t suffered enough, Williams bewails his former life as an oppressed black youth (all fabricated), which garners him accolades and acceptance and leads to the witty “The Black One” number.

Oddly enough, this is also a memory play – or musical – for if you note the footwear worn by both the Narrator and the Youth, you realize that the two characters are one in the same, separated by decades and experience. This, which is subtly hinted at through costume and dialogue in the early parts of the musical, makes the final funeral scene, when Narrator and Youth confront each other, especially poignant. A question, however, might arise – is the link just a tad too subtle? Would “Passing Strange” be more comprehensible, and more moving, if the connection between the two characters was more overt from the start? Well, maybe it is – all you have to do is look at the photograph on the cover of the show’s program to get the message (would that the photo have included the red, low-cut sneakers both characters wear).

Eric R. Williams, Karissa Harris and Garnett Turner

The musical’s title is an allusion to a line from “Othello (“She swore, in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange”), but it can also refer to light-skinned blacks “passing” for whites (something Youth’s grandmother did), as well as the Middle Passage, part of the journey into slavery for millions of Africans (Youth, having become “The Black One,” performs a number in chains that alludes to this). Finally, the title can also refer to the always strange passage of time, if reflected upon in retrospect, that allows Youth to mature into the man he will become (hence the “Passing Phase” number sung by the Narrator and Youth near the end of the show). Whatever the interpretation, and even though the musical had a Broadway run that was well received (and was subsequently filmed by Spike Lee), the book could still use some trimming and some of the musical numbers could be shortened without ill effect.

This is a multi-faceted work that is probably best appreciated with a second viewing – if you know “what’s going on” you are more likely to fill in some of the blanks yourself, musical numbers that seem to stand alone upon first viewing will generate connections, and allusions will be more easily grasped. In any event, kudos to Playhouse on Park for opting to stage this somewhat challenging work, and to a cast that, if nothing else, gives its all to help make for an evening of theater that, while demanding, will resonate on many levels during the drive home.

“Passing Strange” runs through Dec. 20. For tickets or more information call 860-523-5900, X10, or go to www.playhouseonpark.org

Less Than "Peerless"

"Peerless" -- Yale Repertory Theatre -- Thru Dec. 19

Teresa Avia Lim and Tiffany Villarin. All photos by Joan Marcus

Any parent of a high school junior living in suburbia knows the pressure his or her student is under, pressure primarily created by the drive to get into the best school possible. The syndrome seems universal, but some students, and their parents, take it into over-drive, making admission into “The College” something of a quest for the Holy Grail. Success means a heavenly future is all but insured; failure means eternal damnation. Such is the background for “Peerless,” a play by Jiehae Park receiving its world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre under the direction of Margot Bordelon. The title is unfortunate, for though the play offers some enjoyable moments, it’s essentially a one-trick pony with the Bard riding along as sidekick.

Against a somewhat austere set created by Christopher Thompson that serves as a high school hallway, a classroom, a bedroom and living room (and finally the hallowed halls of “The College”), twin sisters, M (Tiffany Villarin) and L (Teresa Avia Lim) plot and connive to gain admittance to their dream college. The only problem is, there are few slots, and one has been taken by one of their fellow students, D (JD Taylor), a nerdy sort who, the sisters believe, truly doesn’t deserve to be crowned king of the college contest.

Tiffany Villarin and Caroline Neff

M is somewhat ambivalent about whether she should usurp D’s place, but her sister urges her on, and here we have strains of the Bard a la “Macbeth.” Standing in for the three “black and midnight hags” is Dirty Girl (Caroline Neff), who smokes, swears and dresses as if she is planning to be nominated for Biker Queen of the Year. Yet she has prescient powers and suggests to M that M’s dreams will be fulfilled if only she take hold and act. Then there is BF (Christopher Livingston), whose function is unclear, but he’s apparently there to stand in for the student body.

There’s a lot of potential in “Peerless.” The opening scene, an extended running argument between the two sisters, with the actors delivering their lines in machine-gun fashion, often biting into each other’s lines, captures the essence of college-crazed teens. There’s the comparison of SAT scores, the lengthy list of AP courses taken, the boasting of GPAs, and the impressive recital of extra-curricular activities, all delivered in a semi-frantic manner that exquisitely captures the manic nature of this pursuit of the treasured acceptance letter, but then the Scottish play starts to sneak in, and what might have been a considered analysis of the insanity currently rampant in thousands of households, with 17-year-olds becoming sleep deprived as they reach for the golden ring, becomes more and more unbelievable, and irrelevant.

JD Taylor, Teresa Avia Lim and Tiffany Villarin 

Suffice it to say, there will eventually be a “damned spot” that cannot be expunged and, in true Shakespearean fashion, bodies will be strewn about before the final curtain – all to what purpose remains to be seen. That not much is actually going on up on the stage – there’s an extended high school prom scene that, in and of itself, is quite enjoyable, but it seems to belong to another play, or perhaps to be an outtake from “Pretty in Pink – is masked by the overly intrusive projections designed by Shawn Boyle and the frenetic lighting created by Oliver Wason. The visual pyrotechnics urge you to believe that there is import to all of this. There isn’t.

Christopher Livingston and Tiffany Villarin

Forgetting about the Macbeth-Lady Macbeth burden the two sisters have to bear, when Lim and Villarin go at it, as they do quite often, the stage lights up and you get the sense of where this play might have gone. When they are just being teenagers, they are terrific, but when they have to plot dark and dirty deeds, well, we’re into metaphor-land here, and it trivializes what has become, as many psychologists and sociologist have noted, a serious situation. One need only look at the cover article of The Atlantic’s December issue – “The Silicon Valley Suicides” – to understand the nature of the problem and the devastating effect it is having on some of the best and brightest teenagers.

That the drive to succeed at all costs, a drive that is ruining young lives, cries out to be dramatized goes without saying. Some have gone so far as to describe this hyper-pressure to gain acceptance at elite colleges and universities as a sickness in the nation’s soul. Unfortunately, “Peerless” settles for pseudo-allusions and a lot of flash and bang. One can only wonder what Arthur Miller, if he was alive today, might have done with the overwhelming burden being placed on our teenagers to succeed. What words would he have written for the Requiem, and whose passing would be mourned?

“Peerless” runs through December 19. For tickets or more information call 203-432-1234 or go to www.yalerep.org