This is a hard one for me to write. I wanted so desperately to fall for this show—the marketing has been great, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more gifted cast, and the writing/producing team is terrific. The fact is, though, that I’m not sure I get it. It’s the story of three neighbors who are trapped together in a Minnesota home after a house party; they struggle with each other, themselves, and finally, their fate. There was some clever dialogue, some hilarious comedic moments (God sent us Tim Hellendrung and his trombone), but in the end I’m not sure it landed. The characters talk often in the play about how little they really know of each other, and I could relate—it was hard to take the journey with people I never got to know. We find out that one character came to the party to commit suicide, but even that is just touched on briefly and set aside in the wild race to the end. The ending is huge fun, and it felt like what theatre should be—a life-changing moment we are privileged to witness. I hope Ben San Del keeps working on it. The play is a good idea; the Fringe’s time limits made me feel cheated out of the full story, though, and I wasn’t sure what I’d seen during the curtain call.
