The conceit of Scottish playwright Linda McLean's 2007 play is intriguing, getting us to know one person through her interactions with five others. That those five all happen to be men is no coincidence. The character is May, and the play's five scenes have something in common besides her: All involve either strangers or babies. May feels compelled to rescue a baby bird against her husband's stern admonishments. She visits her cranky dad in the hospital, who makes no secret of his disappointment in her, after his initially being taken with her as an infant. In a clandestine hotel-room rendezvous, she meets up with a chatroom buddy. She tells her estranged brother she's expecting a baby. She hovers over her napping toddler, fretting over an unannounced afternoon intrusion by an officious Child Protection Office drone, hoping to spare her son the fate of being unloved by one's parents.
McLean's text is anything but pop psychology, for we all know the extremes humans can go to if insufficiently loved as children. Tightly directed by Dave Barton in a three-quarter-round staging that Americanizes the text just enough to make it accessible, the work's U.S. premiere presents McLean's dry observations of human nature in the most matter-of-fact way. Brenda Kenworthy reveals just enough of May's personality so that by the final scene, we recognize ourselves in her: a good person trapped in a passionless existence, trying to do right by others while desperately trying to hold it together for herself. Jay Michael Fraley's Dan, May's husband, is the realistic yin to May's idealistic, humanistic yang. Rick Kopps is May's angry, red-faced hospice-patient Dad, revealing a half-dozen emotions in roughly 10 minutes. Kane Anderson, Frank Aranda, and Christopher Basile round out a solid cast that merges with the text to paint recognizable figures in short, deft, effective strokes.
Presented by and at the Rude Guerrilla Theater Company,
202 N. Broadway, Santa Ana.
Thu.-Sat. 8 p.m. (Also Sun. 2:30 p.m. May 11.) Apr. 11-May 17.
(714) 547-4688. www.rudeguerrilla.org.