Theatre in Review: Deep Blue Sound (Clubbed Thumb at the Public Theater)Playwright Abe Koogler has distinguished himself in more than one way -- as a poet of the working stiff in the dramas Kill Floor and Fulfillment Center, and as an absurdist joker in last season's Staff Meal -- but who knew he dreamed of being Thornton Wilder? That's the direction he is headed in Deep Blue Sound and darn it if he doesn't just about make good on it. Indeed, you can argue that Deep Blue Sound is Koogler's take on Our Town, relocated to the Pacific Northwest and adapted to our supremely jittery age. Borrowing one of Wilder's self-conscious techniques, Koogler begins with the cast taking the stage and announcing the characters they will play. They also inform us that they inhabit an island just off the coast of Seattle; it's a charming place -- never mind the feral dogs roaming in unpopulated areas -- and one of its principal joys is the occasional sight of whale families passing by and leaping in the air. This year, however, the whales haven't shown up, sending a shiver of unease through the community. Is their absence mere happenstance, evidence of global warming, or, possibly, something even more sinister? The disappearing whale phenomenon is a bit of a MacGuffin, at least until the play's finale. Instead, Kogler creates a pointillist community portrait constructed out of conversational fragments caught on the fly, many ending in medias res; you don't watch Deep Blue Sound so much as you eavesdrop on it. And yet, by evening's end, you know everything about these singular, eccentric, often lonely, islanders. Koogler doesn't take Wilder's ultra-long view of human history, but he has the master's knack for finding extraordinary meaning in everyday joys and sorrows. The play is so casual, so freeform on its surface that you might miss how brilliantly it works. Director Arin Arbus handles these delicate materials with the lightest of touches, aided by actors who deftly weave the web of relationships that makes Koogler's script so engaging. (Arbus has a Wilder connection of her own, having staged a well-regarded production of The Skin of Our Teeth.) In some ways, the twin poles of the production are Crystal Finn as Annie, the town's overwrought "symbolic" mayor -- the bizarre local electoral practices involve choosing a candidate associated with one's favorite charity -- and Maryann Plunkett as Ella, ostensibly in remission from cancer but in fact at the point of no return. As Annie frantically rouses her fellow citizens to do something, anything about the whales, and Ella quietly plans her death -- legally, with the assistance of a nurse -- everyone else swirls around them. They include Arnie Burton, wry and worried as John, Ella's close friend (now pushed away), who reaches out to "Homeless Gary" (Ryan King), a local handyman with an on-the-spectrum affect and a penchant for living rough; Carmen Zilles as Ali, Ella's daughter, who has unfinished business with her semi-estranged partner in Brooklyn; and Miriam Silverman as Ella's friend Mary, whose marriage to Chris (Armando Riesco) has unraveled after he got "physically aggressive" with her. Among those attracting Mayor Annie's mostly negative attention is Jan Leslie Harding as nervy, mousy Les, devoted to horse-breeding and cultivating pen pals -- handwritten letters preferred -- who harbors vain hopes of a romantic trip to Spain. Chronicling all these comings and goings is Mia Katigbak as Joy Mead, the newspaper editor, who gets enlisted to help Ella draft her obituary. The meeting of Katigbak and Plunkett, two of our great actresses, is enough to make Deep Blue Sound worth seeing; Koogler gifts them with an encounter that is, in many ways, the key to the play: The women are derailed from their appointed task because Ella is captivated by Joy's autobiographical tales, especially those recounting her time in a cult. Then Ella, feeling entirely comfortable with her new friend, asks Joy to be present when she takes her fatal dose, and, in an instant, their warm connection is quietly, but definitively, severed. This shockingly abrupt turn of events is treated with supreme delicacy, a small moment underscored by powerful emotions. It's one of many moments of insight illuminated by this faultless cast: Mayor Annie's meltdown at a town meeting, singling out Les for an astonishingly cruel dismissal; John's melancholy phone call to a long-ago lover; Riesco's touching turn as an adolescent boy obsessed with becoming a professional dancer, whose mother can't bring herself to validate his talent. (Everyone in the company takes on secondary roles.) And until you've seen Maryann Plunkett's take on how whales communicate -- a positive symphony of grunts and whistles, complete with illustrative body language -- you have lived but a shadow of a life. The production, which started as part of Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks program and is currently at the Public's Susan Stein Shiva Theater, is pleasingly, appropriately simple. The design collective dots has provided a clean platform -- no masking or drapes -- with minimal furniture and props; Emily Rebholz dresses the actors in the rumpled, layered looks that the characters would surely prefer. Isabella Byrd requires only a small number of lighting units to elegantly carve out the actors. Mikaal Sulaiman's sound design calls up various natural phenomena, such as gulls, wind, and breaking surf; a floor mic is used for occasional visits to a therapist's office. In its elliptical way, Deep Blue Sound is filled with conflicts but the real story here is how Koogler invests his material with the preceptive details one associates with good prose fiction; his characters would not be out of place in the novels of Anne Tyler or Elizabeth Streb. He is an acute listener, taking soundings from deep inside his characters' hearts. His writing radiates a humanity that is a balm for the soul. --David Barbour 
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