This 1999 Southern romantic comedy by Arlene Hutton picked up a nomination for Best Play from the New York Drama League, placing it in the same company as Michael Frayn's modern classic Copenhagen and Donald Margulies' Pulitzer winner Dinner With Friends. It must have been mighty tough to fill that fifth spot, because this two-hander, set in Kentucky during the 1940s, is about as exciting and intriguing as a plate of grits. A discharged army pilot and a nervous religious schoolteacher meet in a train compartment. Raleigh (Adam Saunders) and May (Milly Sanders) don't have a clue where they're heading geographically or emotionally. Raleigh may ride it all the way to New York City and fulfill his dream of being a writer. He believes that the corpses of Nathanael West and F. Scott Fitzgerald are locked away in the baggage compartment. Aren't trains just the most appropriate analogy for the crossroads of life?
Unfortunately, train drama can make for some pretty boring theatre. Yasmina Reza's Unexpected Man is a notable recent exception. Then again, she did have Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon to help her out with all those long-winded internal monologues. While the promising Saunders and Sanders (sounds like they'd make a more successful comedy duo, or law firm) try their best to overcome the play's repetitive nature with some fine moments, they ultimately can't do much to distract from the tedium. Hutton relies strongly on coincidence as a theatrical device, instead of proper plot development: Raleigh happens to come from a town near May's home, and he also knew her ex-boyfriend from the army. In the next two scenes, Raleigh and May run into each other again a couple of years later and build up enough of a rapport to invite marriage.
Director Jeff Storer, a professor at Duke University, does little to help our imagination or bring us into the world of these underdeveloped characters. The lighting and set design at best are uninspired, often nonexistent, leaving Sanders and Saunders with sparse ambient support. At 90 intermissionless minutes, Nibroc transfers a contagious sense of Southern ennui from the stage to the audience.
"Last Train to Nibroc," presented by Footprint on the Sun & the Powerhouse Theatre in conjunction with Manbites Dog Theater at the Powerhouse Theatre, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 6 p.m. Mar. 16-Apr. 15. $15-20. (310) 358-5956.