1 week Ago
As you have no doubt already guessed, I am writing this from the car. Seriously though, this genre of theater — along with Hallmark/Lifetime movies, children’s Easter egg hunts, church covered dish suppers and root canals — are adventures I tend to decline to attend as I am all-too aware that my past encounters with the like have proved, fraught, unfruitful and unappetizing. And while it is certain that Deborah Zoe Laufner’s play, “Be Here Now,” currently being given its regional premiere (in a very handsome production) at Latham’s Curtain Call Theater, will move many to reach for a box of tissues at the evening denouement it may also cause others to quibble.
The plot is that of a Young Adult novel heroine afflicted with a bad case of the blues ...
or perhaps something more sinister. Nihilistic and morose, Bari (the always good Jennifer Van Iderstyne) is an attractive young woman who is trapped by her uncompleted academia and is drowning in a sea of ennui whiling away her hours in a mindless job with co-workers Louanne (a positively bouncy Talia Hotaling) and Patty (a practical and pragmatic Pamela O’Conner). While the ladies natter on discussing faith, hope and boys, Bari suddenly stops talking, sits down and suffers a quiet seizure.
Or does she have a spontaneous religious awakening? Or perhaps it’s just an overdose of dopamine? At this point in the play, Laufer doesn’t tell us just what the problem is — or if it really is a problem — but whatever it.
