Theatre in Review: The Layover (Second Stage)

	Annie Parisse, Adam Rothenberg. Photo: Joan Marcus

After seeing Leslye Headland's twisty -- and clammy -- romantic thriller, you may want to trade in your frequent-flier miles; at the least, you'll be sure the next time you get on an airplane to have an enormous book with which to ward off talkative strangers. Shellie, one of Headland's two main characters -- somehow, the word "heroine" fails to describe her -- has such a book, a copy of James Ellroy's ultra-violent novel The Cold Six Thousand, one of many little details that signal mayhem ahead. Nevertheless, she allows herself to be drawn into a conversation with Dex, the handsome man in the next seat. Dex seems to be flirting with Shellie in a desultory way; interestingly, she has a way of putting him off, then slyly kicking the intensity up to another level. Headland's way with dialogue is showcased here; watching them circle each other -- playfully, wittily, but with an omnipresent undertone of hostility -- it's easy to expect that The Layover will be a scintillating evening of romantic comedy.

The flight is delayed, then cancelled. Stuck in the airport, Shellie and Dex continue opening up to each other, bit by bit. Dex confesses to having a fiancée whom he isn't entirely happy about; having played a role in the breakup of her marriage, he feels more obligated than romantic. Shellie says she is very happily single and a professor of literature at Hunter, with a specialty in crime fiction. They discuss Patricia Highsmith, most notably Strangers on a Train, in which, Shellie explains, "the boring guy" and "the crazy guy" meet and become entangled in an exchange of murders. Later, as they are going to bed with each other, Shellie says, "I was thinking....Which one of us will be boring? And which one will be crazy?" Rest assured, we will find out.

I can't give away what happens next, except to note that one of them is an extremely creative liar, the other has pronounced stalker tendencies, and their one sexual encounter will have profound repercussions for them both. As Shellie says, "Desire is such an odd word. But I think that's what it was. And then after this lie. Spread into my blood. Pumped into my heart. And it's infected every small action since then." After Headland lays bare the details of their everyday lives, Dex and Shellie get back together, in the same hotel room, in an attempt at recreating the past, which has the ugliest of consequences. By this point, one realizes that all the references to Strangers on a Train are merely red herrings; the thriller that casts a shadow over The Layover is Vertigo.

Oddly, however, the darker and more twisted the action becomes, the more The Layover loses interest. Part of this has to do with Headland's inability to convince us that Shellie and Dex's single night of romance could prove so destabilizing to their lives. It doesn't help that she -- admittedly necessarily -- holds back so much information about Dex's character until the eleventh hour, leaving him little more than a good-looking blank for most of the running time. And the people with whom she surrounds Shellie and Dex are surely the most unappealing bunch I've encountered all season. As suspense builds, then dissipates, The Layover feels like an aimless walk on the wild side, a clinical study of psychosexual dysfunction that doesn't convince and never compels.

This is nothing against Annie Parisse, one of the wittier and more appealing actresses around, who, in the early scenes at least, keeps us guessing about Shellie's true intentions. She is especially amusing when dismantling one of Dex's conversational icebreakers, exposing it as the easy pickup line it really is. She casts a considerable spell in that hotel bedroom, and brings a palpable sadness to the scenes depicting her real life. If Shellie seems too sharp-witted and sophisticated for the woman she is eventually revealed to be, the fault lies with the playwright, not the actress. As Dex, Adam Rothenberg volleys dialogue back at her with the skill of a highly seeded tennis player; he also captures the character's inability to take responsibility for his actions and is skilled at inserting little character shadings with sinister undertones. Their combined work is the main reason that The Layover holds one's interest for as long as it does.

Even though they constitute a remarkably skeevy bunch, the supporting cast is also expert. John Procaccino is skin-crawlingly effective as a dying old man who still enjoys remembering his many infidelities; Amelia Workman is a strong presence as Dex's tart, materialistic fiancée; Arica Himmel convinces as a grasping, foul-mouthed little girl; and Quincy Dunn-Baker is equally effective as both a low-level drug dealer with a sadistic streak and a private detective with his own unique take on the relations between the sexes.

The director, Trip Cullman, has done solid work with his cast, but the rest of the production works overtime trying to call up a film-noir atmosphere, to diminishing returns. Mark Wendland's set, a complicated arrangement of movable, transparent panels combined with scenic wagons, is a dark, dank contraption, arguably more involved than it needs to be. Japhy Weideman's intensely focused, highly directional lighting adds to the gloom; he also employs the same blinder-cue idea that Donald Holder used a few months ago in The Father, dazzling us with light to cover the scene changes. Jeff Sugg's video design is effective when helping to define a location -- the snow-covered airport view from a hotel window, for example -- but less so when providing some rapid-fire visual wallpaper effects between scenes. Fitz Patton's sound design adds to the generalized sense of dread, also making clever use of Hall and Oates' "I Can't Go for That," as both a tool of seduction and a warning bell.

Headland is a clever writer who constructs her plot twists with aplomb and has her own, often hilarious, ear for the absurdities buried in everyday conversation. But she never gives us a plausible reason for getting involved in Shellie and Dex's dangerous dance. They are at their most intriguing when we know nothing about them; the more we learn, the smaller and more sordid they seem. -- David Barbour