'Boy' boasts knockout performances

BOY, Salt Lake Acting Company, through Feb. 26 (363-7522 or 355-2787). Running time: two hours (one intermission).

This multilayered drama about a strange, mysterious lad from a small Iowa town working his way into the lives of a dysfunctional Minneapolis family is a bit of an oddity.

There are strong performances from some of the Wasatch Front's best talent. And director Kirstie Gulick Rosenfield keeps things moving as the action shifts back and forth in time and space. But you spend much of the time wondering where it's headed.

At the center of the action is Mick, a 30-ish drifter who can't keep a job and who seems to be stuck in a "Peter Pan" rut. His father is Terry, a depressed, suicidal psychologist who desperately needs counseling himself, and his mother is Maureen, who teaches one minor literature class in a small community college and blames her family for keeping her from a real career in an Ivy League university.

Christopher Glade, Morgan Lund and Jayne Luke, respectively, deliver knockout performances as Mick and his parents, spinning their wheels and getting mired deeper and deeper in their collective emotional quagmires.

Luke, especially, gives a performance that ranks among her very best.

Deena Marie Manzanares also does a fine job as Sara, the girl Mick ditched three years ago.

The connecting link in Mick, Terry and Maureen's disparate lives is the strange Boy, played to the hilt by David Fetzer, a young man strung out on drugs. He's acquainted with Mick through an Internet chat room. He surfaces in each of the family's unique situations — driving Terry to frantic distraction during a counseling session, irritating Maureen when she's grading his writing assignment in school and meeting with Mick, who has been editing the Boy's stories about a Vietnam veteran.

There's a storytelling link in all of their situations, but are their tales truthful or fabricated or both? Slowly, one layer at a time, there are dark, even evil, secrets that float to the surface, about all five of these characters.

The Boy has been involved in some strange, deadly incidents in Iowa.

By the time intermission rolls around you're wondering just where this convoluted puzzle, with all the ill-fitting pieces and entangled stories is going.

One big downside is playwright Julia Jordan's propensity for packing her drama with an endless barrage of one, overused R-rated expletive. This irritating ploy doesn't add one iota to the characterizations.

Keven Myhre's set and Jen "Z" Zorrow's lighting help move the action quickly and smoothly to various locals — Sara's bedroom, Terry and Maureen's offices, the family's kitchen and a bridge on the Minneapolis waterfront.

Sensitivity rating: Considerable adult language.

---

E-mail: ivan@desnews.com