From its rustic opening to its climactic torrents of melodrama, "Further Than the Furthest Thing" tries on many hats, very few of them comfortably. Playwright Zinnie Harris achieves some success at a few of the styles, particularly the later ones, but this patchwork quality keeps the characters at arm's length. The play feels like a collection of short stories that has been collapsed into an ungainly full-length piece.
Act I takes place entirely on Tristan da Cunha, a far-flung South Atlantic island where people count potatoes and say things like "Of course you isn't, and I's glad you isn't." Understandably, young Francis (Dan Futterman) is eager to modernize the island, and he enlists the help of Mr. Hansen (Peter Gerety), a cosmopolitan factory owner whom he met at sea. Francis' Aunt Mill (the always reliable Jenny Sterlin) is smitten with the idea, but his stoic Uncle Bill (Robert Hogan) has his doubts. Francis' sweetheart, Rebecca (Jennifer Dundas), is pregnant. Oh, and a volcano is about to uproot the entire island population. (The play is loosely based on events that happened in 1961.) Despite all these bombshells, nothing comes across as terribly new or captivating.
Cut to Southampton, where the islanders have adapted to big-city life with varying skill. The play's second, more compelling batch of plot twists all stem from Mill's yearnings to return home. The corporate world proves every bit as dastardly as one expects, but the island's amiable charm gives way to a few dark secrets as well. By the end, Harris has shifted into a considerably darker realm of recrimination and guilt.
Even though much of Sterlin's early material feels like cut-rate Martin McDonagh, she and director Neil Pepe ultimately find real pathos in Mill's despondency. The other roles are all fairly underwritten, but all four actors, particularly Dundas, manage to wring some life out of them. Still, these flat characterizations, combined with the play's narrative schizophrenia, keep "Furthest Thing" from becoming more than Francis' ill-fated factory scheme: an ambitious but failed experiment.