Dana Scurlock as Mary, the company stage manager (left), circumspectly scrutinizes Colin (Jack DiFalco), a volatile and troubled young actor, in Ryan Spahn’s Inspired by True Events.
Ryan Spahn’s Inspired by True Events is an amalgamation of docudrama, backstage comedy, psychological thriller, and immersive theater. The boundaries between the genres often blur, and the effect is often comical, sometimes chilling, and occasionally disorienting. The production’s fun-house quality is encapsulated in the paradoxical and droll preshow announcement: “The following story you’re about to witness is inspired by true events. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.”
Maternal and protective, Mary comforts a distraught Colin.
Set in the fictional green room of a community theater in Rochester, N.Y., the play is staged in the actual green room of Theatre 154 in Greenwich Village. Discarded pizza boxes, costume steamers, a half-completed jigsaw puzzle, and Samuel French scripts strewn about add to the familiarity of the environment. (Scenic designer Lindsay G. Fuori maintains the intimacy of the space by accommodating just 35 audience members per performance. Paige Seber’s lighting, Siena Zoë Allen’s costumes, and Peter Mills Weiss’s sound design contribute to the theatrical vérité.)
When the lights come up, Mary (Dana Scurlock), the harried production stage manager and queen bee of the neighborhood theater company is training her jittery assistant to call cues for the evening’s performance, because Mary has a wedding to attend and will be cutting out early.
Gradually, the actors performing in the play-within-the play enter. Colin (Jack DiFalco), who is prone to outbursts, appears noticeably agitated. He broke up with his girlfriend only the night before. Eileen (Mallory Portnoy), a chronic complainer and resolute gossip, is also in a state of perturbation, having just endured an apparently minor bike accident (one that is practically life-threatening in her description) because of a careless and callous driver. Last to arrive (and well past the obligatory half-hour call) is Robert (Lou Liberatore), sporting a bad toupee and flitting around the room as he prepares for the evening’s performance.
“The play and site-specific production cheekily overturn performance conventions.”
The troupe has reason to be excited about the show, which opened the previous night. Their play, When Tragedy Comes Home (and which is also “inspired by true events”), has been rapturously received by the local critics, and the reviews are sprinkled with superlatives, such as the gold-standard “transcendent.” Audiences have been similarly taken, and Mary proudly reports that “Rhonda from the Java Detour said it was the greatest show she’d ever seen us do, and that’s including our 12 Angry Jurors.”
While getting into costume and waiting for their cue to go onstage, Robert and Eileen discover a foul-smelling and suspicious duffel bag presumably owned by Colin. The subsequent revelations about the contents of the container put the old adage “The show must go on” to the test.
Without giving too much away, Spahn has said that the premise of the play is based on Daniel Wozniak, a community theater actor who was convicted of killing two people during his run in the musical Nine, in which he played womanizer Guido Contini. Wozniak is currently serving a life sentence on death row.
From left: Awaiting their cues backstage, Robert (Lou Liberatore) and Eileen (Mallory Portnoy) detect strange sounds coming from the vent. Photographs by Thomas Brunot.
Adroitly directed by Knud Adams, the play and site-specific production cheekily overturn performance conventions. That is, the audience is seated backstage of the theater, but along with the prepping actors, they watch on the green room monitor a performance that is taking place on stage just across the hall. Notably, the audience can hear through the backstage speaker the murmuring and applause from an unseen audience in the auditorium of the same theater. The conceit is tantalizing and reminiscent of the intricate dramatic puzzles devised by Alan Ayckbourn.
The cast does a fine job capturing, without exaggerating, the sense of haughty self-importance that comes with being local celebrities while taking part in community theater. They successfully move between the comic hijinks associated with amateur theatrics and the jarring tension caused by the ghoulish discovery.
As a stage thriller, though, the play is a letdown. There are a few moments early on, such as strange sounds coming from the vent, that offer some suspense, but as a mystery the play doesn’t have enough titillating terror. The culminating horror occurs in the last 30 minutes or so, but it has not been sufficiently teased and the stakes haven’t been sneakily raised to create the sensation of a slow burn. We have been distracted by extraneous (though often very amusing) banter about family members attending the play and complaints about the company’s theater owner and manager.
Inspired by True Events is an ambitious and praiseworthy effort, but ultimately and disappointingly, the elements do not fully cohere.
Out of the Box Theatrics’ Inspired by True Events runs through Aug. 4 at Theatre 154 (154 Christopher St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets, visit Ovation Tix.
Playwright: Ryan Spahn
Director: Knud Adams
Sets: Lindsay G. Fuori
Costumes: Siena Zoë Allen
Lighting: Paige Seber
Sound: Peter Mills Weiss
