April 01--"Well, you know what they say," a guy observes in Douglas Maxwell's story of three childhood pals, "you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family."
"I never chose my friends," comes the retort, and there is truth in this.
The men grew up together in a small town on the southwest coast of Scotland -- "small enough for everyone to know everyone else," per Maxwell's author's note in the script.
Their friendship -- or whatever you want to call it -- is the result of proximity, knocking around as doofy 9-year-old kids in school uniforms, later as 19-year-olds in primo grunge wear, and later still as men nearing 30 and with little to hold them together but the memory of a fourth member of their group (a "dour, dour boy" in Maxwell's description) who wrote fantastical allegories -- two of which we see acted out -- before he disappeared. Or killed himself. Either way, he's gone.
"OK pals, here's the deal," says Paul (Layne Manzer as the least angsty of the bunch) when they reunite as adults on the cliffs overlooking their village. "We made a promise and we made a bet, and tonight we put an end to both. After tonight we don't have to lay eyes on each other ever again."
That bit of dialogue promises more than the play is able to deliver, plotwise.
And it suggests a narrative with cleaner lines than what transpires between Paul and his two pals, Fraser (Dan Behrendt's confident boy who grows into a haunted man who cannot shake the past) and Alan (John Wilson's good-natured prat who understands more than people give him credit for).
The shifting dynamic among the three is intricate and subtly wrought in this production from Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. and director Carlo Lorenzo Garcia, which is a remount from 2008 with nearly the same cast but for the role of Giggles, who we only see in flashback, played with a precise sense of alienation by Lane Flores as a boy with a fervid imagination that offers an escape from his miserable reality.
There is an unease mixed with offbeat comedy here, the latter of which doesn't always land (it actually feels a bit forced in places), but there is a wry sensibility threaded throughout this story of what it feels like to be trapped by a place -- or a feeling -- that you cannot outrun.
REVIEW: Our Bad Magnet by Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co.
2.5 STARS
Through April 26 at Angel Island, 735 W. Sheridan Road; tickets are $25 at 866-468-3401 or maryarrchie.com
nmetz@tribpub.com
