The sad, seductive promise of running away is the opportunity to leave your past behind and reinvent yourself from scratch.
To meet new people with no opinion of you yet. The yoke of unresolved conflict, regret, past mistakes, failed or unrequited love – gone. A fresh start, as anyone you want to be.
This is what the intriguing title of Scott Gibson’s new play, “Someone Else’s Life,” promises. Haven’t we all reached that point of such despair or envy that we’d just rather be living someone, anyone, else’s life? And where else but among strangers does one get the chance to be so desperately dishonest – and get away with it?
The playwriting possibilities are endless. But “Someone” is one of those promising, problematic new plays that’s always threatening to become more interesting than it ever quite does.
It’s enjoyable enough to watch in its debut staging by Gibson’s Conundrum Productions, mostly because it is playfully acted by an impeccable ensemble save for one key actor trying way too hard. Gibson’s strength is character over plot, and he’s created five who are original, real people in search of a more satisfying story line.
Our wonderful set (designed by Biz Schaugaard), is a small cabin motel in a mountain town called Audra that feels a lot like Grand Lake. Married couple Rose and Alan (the excellent Susan D’Autremont and John Samson) are busybodies who are better off prying into others’ affairs than examining the holes in their own. Incompatible brothers Matthew (Jono Waldman) and Daniel (Jake Mechling) are sharing a cramped cabin for their unseen sister’s wedding the next day.
The mystery kicks in when disheveled Amy (Susan Scott) slips into her cabin looking like the haggard bridesmaid she is. She’s run away from her own sister’s wedding reception, jumped on a bus to anywhere and found herself here of all places – in the middle of another wedding party.
It’s an intriguing start but the end of the first scene exposes a major writing flaw. Amy produces a wad of bills from her purse for no apparent reason but for the playwright to communicate to the audience that hey, just so you know, she’s packing cash.
The next two hours flow but never overflow because Gibson pulls back at every moment you think the play will move in a more substantial direction. Rose says flatly she can’t tell Alan she loves him. It’s a great moment, then … nothing. Alan exposes Amy’s big secret, then … nothing. Instead, a soliloquy on how he wanted to be a dancer. A fiery confrontation builds between the shallow womanizer and his meek, tightly wound brother but … nothing.
So the play belongs to a revelatory Scott, who injects a needed edge as our little runaway. She teases us with the unleashing of an emotional torrent that might tie all these lives together but Gibson again pulls back. Amy’s mysterious tale turns out to be not all that mysterious – or interesting – after all.
As the story glides to its conclusion, I thought what this really needs is someone to do something – punch, kiss or kill. Someone to change. An arc. A new direction.
Then I realized – that’s someone else’s play.
“Someone Else’s Life”
DRAMA|Conundrum Productions|Directed by Jim Hunt|At the Buntport Theater, 717 Lipan St.|THROUGH NOV. 11|8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays|1 hour, 55 minutes|$20- ($10 Thursdays)|303-601-2640
“BOYS’ LIFE” Howard Korder’s fast-paced comic scenes trace the misadventures of three college friends now seeking to make their way in the world – and various women of their acquaintance. The play dissects male narcissism and protracted adolescence. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays through Nov. 11 at the E-Vent Center, 9797 W. Colfax Ave., Lakewood. $12-$15 (303-883-0204 or theeproject.org).
“SOMETHING IS ROTTEN” Following hit runs at the Boulder Fringe Festival and its own theater, Buntport brings its inventive new show to TheatreWorks in Colorado Springs. In it, three Beckett-like oddballs are compelled by a tube sock to present “Hamlet” with the shirts on their backs and the socks on their hands. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays through Oct. 29 at 3955 Cragwood Drive. $12-$22 (719-262-3232).
“SAINT JOAN” OpenStage’s Jessica V. Freestone portrays Joan of Arc’s rise to glory and her subsequent martyrdom in George Bernard Shaw’s masterpiece. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays (some Sundays and Thursdays) through Nov. 19 at the Lincoln Center Mini Theater, 417 W. Magnolia St. in Fort Collins. $13-$20 (970-221-6730).
-John Moore
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
“RUNNING LINES” AT THE “HATS” OPENING: The Post’s John Moore conducts backstage interviews on opening night with Kathie Lee Gifford and more.
listen at denverpost.com/theater
