Theatre In Review: Jonah (Roundabout Theatre at Laura Pels Theatre)

	Gabby Beans. Photo: Joan Marcus

In the program for her new play, Rachel Bonds notes that its time frame is "the past and the present. But everything is slippery." That's putting it mildly. Among the many questions you're likely to be asking yourself at the Laura Pels, a primary one might be, who, exactly, is Jonah? The young man of the title appears, charms us, and then vanishes from the plot (almost) never to be referenced again. Then again, you're bound to find yourself wondering, who is Ana? The latter query is, in fact, even more urgent; indeed. It's the key to the entire captivating, yet sometimes mystifying, enterprise; Jonah's title aside, Ana is the central character, seen in three different situations that, on the evidence, can't possibly cohere into a single narrative. Or can they?

When we first encounter Ana, she is a boarding school student being chased around campus at night by Jonah, a winsome youth afflicted with a king-sized crush. At first, she tries to put him off, insisting that she is just running to a vending machine for some candy; it's after hours and if she doesn't return quickly, she'll be in trouble. But Jonah's stumbling attempts at getting her attention prove unexpectedly endearing ("You're seared in my memory now. You'll never be un-seared") and, in a burst of mischievousness, Ana can't stop herself from flashing her bra. Soon they are holding clandestine late-night get-togethers in her room, during which we learn that Jonah, a townie student, is grief-stricken over his mother's death and his father's alcoholism. (In one mortifying episode, he must rescue his dad, who has drunkenly disgraced himself at work.) Both Ana and Jonah are virgins but, as all signals indicate, not for long.

For all we know, Bonds has in mind the theatrical equivalent of a John Green novel, and, in truth, both Ana and Jonah, charming as they are, seem a little too idealized to be true. Ana spins amusingly convoluted romantic fantasy scenarios that sound like every Richard Curtis film you've ever seen, complete with British accents. Jonah is exquisitely sensitive, constantly asking her if she feels safe and obtaining her consent as they move closer to physical intimacy.

But, interwoven with these scenes, Bonds posits another possibility, showing Ana stuck at home with her abusive stepfather and his two sons. The older sibling, Danny, is her confederate in holding together their fractured little clan. (Ana's mother has died and the children must take the brunt of the widower's anger.) Each time Danny shows up in Ana's bedroom, he is sporting another festering bruise in need of tending (alarmingly convincing work by hair and makeup designer Tommy Kurzman). Ana sees college as her ticket out of this nightmare, but Danny furiously insists that he find an escape for them all. He also harbors an abiding need for Ana who, reluctantly, gives in; what follows is a brief, unsatisfying sexual encounter expressed as a hopeless tangle of love, abuse, and desperation. (If you've wondered why theatre companies are now mandating intimacy coordinators -- in this case, Ann James -- Jonah will make it clear.

Even as one tries to puzzle out the relationship between these alternate realities, Bonds pitches a third: Ana, now an adult and the author of an acclaimed novel, is at a woodland writer's retreat, working on her next book. Her progress is considerably impeded by Steven, another writer, who keeps dropping by with cookies, plates of food, and conversation. (Ana keeps missing meals, in part to make progress and in part because of offensive comments from others at the communal dinner table.) Tall and possessed of a Jimmy Stewart awkwardness, Steven tries to wear down Ana's smiling, steely resistance, but it isn't until a late-night exchange of confidences -- he opens with a description of how he lost his Mormon faith -- that she reveals herself and, at long last, we see how the pieces of the play fit together. In an eleventh-hour encounter that is both a liberation and act of mourning, we discover Jonah's true nature.

It's a tricky structure, each narrative line conceived in a different key -- young adult romance, stark family drama, and high comedy yielding to painful disclosures -- yet with all three blending to ultimately harmonious effect. Interestingly, each of the four characters suffers from a kind of disassociation from bodily pleasure, whether because of physical abuse, guilt, or upbringing-induced shame; none of them have emerged from adolescence psychologically intact. Bonds is interested in the stories we tell ourselves to soothe our pains and maybe even save our lives. For all its apparent waywardness, Jonah is tightly structured, with certain motifs -- nighttime visits, religion, sexual fantasies, a hurled vase -- reoccurring in shifting contexts; the more one thinks about it, the more carefully wrought it seems.

Such thoughts may occur to you after the fact; watching Jonah, you're more likely to be taken with an exceptionally fine cast guided by the deft hand of director Danya Taymor. Gabby Beans, an attention-getter in Lincoln Center's revival of The Skin of Our Teeth and Atlantic Theater's I'm Revolting, delivers a subtle tour de force as the three faces of Anna, aging plausibly from sixteen to nearly forty and pivoting, as needed, from sympathetic friend to maternal/sexual figure to wary guardian of her troubled privacy. In the play's most riveting moment, discussing Danny's fate, she melts down in full view, her limbs trembling like aspens, her eyes watery with anguish.

Hagan Oliveras, his hair a mass of Medusa curls, his manner appealingly awkward, is a lovable Jonah, lamenting that he has been "colonized by sex aliens" even as he sidles away from Ana, trying to disguise an erection. Samuel H. Levine, all but unrecognizable from his dual turn in The Inheritance, is a scarily fragmented Danny, radiating panic at the thought of losing Ana and struggling with a propensity for violence and self-harm. Note how he begs her to massage his temples, a little boy's request for a loving touch. John Zdrojeski, part of the stellar ensemble of Will Arbery's Heroes of the Fourth Turning, is a charmer whether displaying the legs on which the local insects have feasted, demonstrated his expert skill with a dustbuster, or quietly baring the hair-curling details of Latter-Day confession practices for teenaged boys. His knack for throwaway comedy has one rooting for him to make headway with Ana.

The set designer Wilson Chin has been given an almost impossible assignment, having to create a bedroom that can stand in for three very different locations; his solution works well enough, supplying the anonymous, institutional feel required in each instance. Lighting designer Amith Chandrashaker does the heavy lifting here, delivering an evocative lamplit look in the Jonah scenes, creating strongly contrasting warm and cold washes, and effectively wiping the stage as the action shifts from one to another time frame. Kate Marvin's sound design includes some melancholic musical interludes and birdsong.

Jonah continues Roundabout's string of playwright discoveries; Bonds' work has been seen around town, but this is by far the biggest showcase she has received yet. (She has a new musical, The Lonely Few opening at MCC Theater in April.) With its easygoing wit, appealing characters, and underlying vein of deep feeling, I suspect it will be taken up by theatres around the country. --David Barbour