"Entanglement" at 3Girls Theatre Company

3Girls photo by Mario Parnell Photography

Yet another last-minute booking of a play that was closing (in this case, we were actually at the closing night show), so too late for me to make a meaningful recommendation. Sorry!

Anyway, it was a chance to try out a new company and see a few familiar faces (both on stage and in the audience!) and see a play I'd wanted to see, since the geeky side of me always likes a love story with science stuff thrown in. The play was "Entanglement," by AJ Baker, who is also the producing artistic director of 3Girls Theatre Company. She even happened to be sitting right in front of me, which was kind of fun. The production venue was Z Below, a small, basement stage in Potrero Hill where I've been before. It's simple, but it works. Sadly, it was only about half full for this show.

The Play

The play is a little convoluted to describe in brief. Emma (Madeline H.D. Brown) had an affair with her married instructor, Luke (Louis Parnell), almost 20 years ago. Now she's decided to ask him to direct a play she has written about that (sort of), where she will be playing the lead character, opposite her actual husband, Rob (Chad Deverman). Luke takes the job, and brings along his adult daughter, Jeri (Heather Gordon), to assist. This is all meant to be in rehearsal for the SF Fringe Festival, in a tiny theater in the Tenderloin. Sam, the stage manager (Julian Green) has eyes for Jeri. Emma and Rob are having issues.

Anyway, in this play-within-the-play they are rehearsing, the guy is meant to be a physicist, and he describes love as being like electrons that get entangled, affecting each other even over great distances. Clearly we are meant to relate this to the relationship between Emma and Luke, although they haven't seen each other in years. But they have unresolved issues.

I would have liked to have the science stuff get developed a bit more and followed through. It's just kind of thrown out there and then dropped in favor of the human drama. OK, fine, but if you're going to name the play for it, you might want to weave it in a bit more and maybe have a bit more detail than you'd find in the Wikipedia summary. Just saying.

Anyway, it's a decent enough play, though it still feels like it could use some work.

The Production

Strong acting from a good cast throughout, though I didn't really feel the connection between Emma and Luke, which is unfortunate, since that's really the central pull of the show. I have to say that Parnell, who also directed the play, seemed a bit flat throughout. At times I thought that might be an affect related to his character in the play (he's wearing a skull cap because he's getting chemotherapy for cancer), but really he seemed to be just not quite there. That's unfortunate, because Brown was certainly putting it out there, and frankly all three of the other actors were fully engaged. Julian Green in particular was really good at flipping between the energetic and somewhat eccentric Sam and a quiet background bartender at the dive bar.

And I have to give a shout out to the scenic design by Jeff Wincek and the folks who made that bar come to life. When they're in the theater, it's just a boxy cabinet in the background, but in a jiffy it swings open to be a small but entirely convincing bar. I totally want one of those in my house now!

Anyway, it was an enjoyable evening and a good show that could definitely get better with some more work, and mostly strong acting by a good cast.