Theatre in Review: I and You (Merrimack Repertory Theatre/59E59)I and You starts out on a relatively mundane note, only to get more perplexing by the minute. Caroline, a teenager, is alone in her bedroom when she receives an unwelcome surprise visit from Anthony, a young man from her school. Caroline, who doesn't know Anthony from Adam, flies into a panic. You'd be nervous, too, if a young man entered your private space, and, without explanation, announced, "I and this mystery, here we stand." This is a quote from Walt Whitman, and it is Anthony's way of announcing that he and Caroline have been made partners in an English class project about Leaves of Grass. They are to give a presentation, with visual aids, to the class. Anthony has mocked up a pitiful-looking posterboard display, and is ready to beg Caroline for assistance. He has also brought along a bag of waffle fries as an offering. As it happens, the playwright, Lauren Gunderson, has a bagful of curveballs to throw our way. Caroline hasn't heard about the Whitman project because she is a recluse in her bedroom, only desultorily attending her classes online. She can't and won't leave her bedroom, although she insists, "I have a life. I text a lot." Nevertheless, friends are not in evidence; so complete is her isolation that when she needs something -- food, drink, whatever -- she texts her mother on the first floor. All of this is because she needs a liver transplant. Even though Caroline is completely out of touch with her teacher and assigned coursework, she admits a total stranger, agreeing to work on a project she knows nothing about. Her reasoning? "I just can't abide irresponsible crafting," she says, glaring at Anthony's handiwork. She is shocked to learn that the presentation is due the next morning, leaving them with little or no time to complete it. Further complicating matters is the fact that she hasn't read a page of Leaves of Grass. Even more disconcerting is the news that Anthony has come to her house directly from a basketball game where one of the players dropped dead on the court -- a fact that he barely seems to register. And, why is it that Caroline's mother, whom Caroline texted to send up two bottles of Coke, never appears? If all of this seems kind of wobbly, there's good reason for it, for I and You, which at first appears to be a standard odd-couple two-hander, is headed toward a massive eleventh-hour revelation that I cannot reveal, but which basically makes a hash of everything you've been seeing all night; it is accompanied by a coup de théâtre that is surely the most elaborate scenic effect ever achieved at 59E59. Some audience members may find this touched-by-an-angel plot twist to be genuinely moving, even inspirational; others are likely to feel they've been jerked around for 80 minutes in the service of a jerry-rigged tears-and-mysticism finale. Personally, I'm voting with the second delegation. I and You is highly reminiscent of the kind of weepy teen fiction currently making the rounds -- think John Green's The Fault in Our Stars -- and the big finale is a mechanical device crudely inserted into the action by the heavy hand of the author. In all other respects, I and You, as directed by Sean Daniels, is a totally professional operation. Kayla Ferguson captures Caroline's hard-earned spikiness, while showing the fiercely creative, still-hopeful person inside. She is absolutely convincing as an adolescent -- especially in her rendering of the character's mood swings -- and she can be thoroughly charming when the occasion calls for it. The major drawback in her performance is that she appears to be in the rudest of health -- in fact, she looks like she could take on the entire cheerleading team in a brawl -- which undercuts the play's insistence that she may be living on borrowed time if a donated liver doesn't turn up. Also, she begins the play knowing little or nothing about Whitman and ends ups analyzing Whitman like a teenage Helen Vendler. As Anthony, Reggie D. White is clearly an older actor playing young; there's something a little calculated about his awkward postures and anxious, unsure-of-himself demeanor. For the first half of the play, I felt fairly sure that Anthony was gay -- he unnerves Caroline with statements like, "Do you know how many of those classic guys were gay?" -- but whether this is the actor's choice or yet another piece of misdirection on the author's part, I cannot say. Nevertheless, given the way they hold the stage without assistance for 90 minutes, both are young talents to watch. Michael Carnahan's attic bedroom set, with its festoons of twinkle lights, boldly mismatched fabrics, and walls covered in photo collages of, among other things, the Beatles, is pleasant-looking and has the ring of authenticity about it; the late-in-the-evening scenic transformation is very professionally handled. Following Carnahan's design for Skeleton Crew, this is his second solid achievement in a week; he is clearly on a roll. Jennifer Caprio's costumes, Brian J. Lilienthal's lighting, and David Remedios' sound design are all perfectly fine. I and You isn't unpleasant, and at times it offers flashes of insight, but structurally it is a bundle of contrivances that doesn't begin to earn the emotional knockout punch that it wants to deliver. Like her characters, Gunderson has a little more homework to do. -- David Barbour 
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