Chagrin

Michael Ross Albert's preposterous, self-indulgent one-hour one-act purports to examine four former child geniuses, once famous for their appearances on a popular TV game show, now reunited after years apart to shoot a TV reunion, something that has led one of them to attempt suicide. All lead disappointing, underachieving lives, though we never know why, because Albert doesn't successfully connect their unique past to their mundane present.
 
"Chagrin" plunges us directly into a situation without the niceties of exposition, but Albert lacks the craft to make such a choice work. There are lots of windy arguments over who once did what to whom, but the events that trigger them are never clear, and we don't care. When, finally, Seymour, who has been lying in a hospital in a coma caused by a car crash, meanders out alone and unpursued, untethered to an IV but still with a head bandage, and articulately joins the arguing, credibility sails off the proverbial cliff.

Director Adam Levi allows far too much undifferentiated screaming, especially from Marco Agnolucci as Asher, who has apparently pissed off everybody, and there isn't a convincing Ohio accent in the bunch. But then, it feels as if the play is set in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, only so that Albert can have his double-edged title. I grew up in suburban Cleveland. A nationally popular syndicated TV show shot in Chagrin Falls. Really?
 
Presented by Outside Inside, in partnership with HUBO Productions, at La MaMa ETC First Floor Theatre as part of the New York International Fringe Festival, 74A E. Fourth St., NYC.
Aug. 12–20. Remaining performances: Sun., Aug. 14, 4:15 p.m.; Wed., Aug. 17, 10 p.m.; Thu., Aug. 18, 4 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 20, noon. (866) 468-7619 or www.fringenyc.org.