Theatre in Review: Inspired by True Events (Out of the Box Theatrics/Theatre 154)

	Lou Liberatore. Photo: Thomas Brunot

At Theatre 154, we are taken into a green room; little do we know it's a trap. Scenic designer Lindsay G. Fuori has reworked the backstage actors' hangout at the former New Ohio Theatre, accommodating 35 audience members; we're packed in tightly, to be sure, but it's a setup that ballasts Ryan Spahn's play, which begins as an observant backstage comedy and morphs into an exercise in claustrophobic suspense.

Inspired by True Events really is inspired by true events but the less you know going in, the better. (There's a detailed Times feature discussing the plot's real-life source; save it until you've seen the show.) It's the day after opening night at a semi-pro community theatre in Rochester, New York. Despite their triumph -- someone notes that the word "transcendent" turns up in a review -- the actors are cranky and hungover. Twentysomething Colin, intending to propose to his girlfriend, has broken up with her instead. Leading lady Eileen, a bike rider who, on the way to the theatre, has a near-miss accident with a car, shares her extensive list of grievances. Robert, Eileen's scene partner, is late, discombobulated by traffic snarls, unsettled by a gaggle of helicopters flying over the area, and gripped by the sneaking suspicion that Eileen has axed him from her birthday party's guest list. All three are about to take part in a performance they won't forget, no matter how much they may want to.

They're a perpetually stressed-out bunch, dogged by small audiences, underpayment, and multitudinous personal problems; Spahn, a busy character actor who has probably racked up hundreds of hours in such environments, understands the territory. The first part of the play unfolds in the hyperreal format popularized by David Adjmi in the current Broadway darling Stereophonic. The dialogue is filled with intriguing references to the characters' private lives and the theatre's rundown state. (Are those strange noises evidence of an infestation? What's that rustling in the garbage can?) The playwright nails the characters' barely detectable slights and jealous admissions of talent. For them, the play is always, always the thing: Recalling the crowd of strangers assembled around her following her accident, Eileen says, "I should've been like, 'Come see me in my play.' I bet they all would've bought tickets."

However, just when you might start wondering if Inspired by True Events is trailing off into aimlessness, an evil-smelling gym bag is discovered in a shower room. Once its grisly contents are revealed, certain facts become clear: One company member is a borderline personality and the possibility of leaving the theatre alive has become distinctly uncertain. This is when you may notice how cleverly Spahn has dropped into the characters' everyday dialogue bits of information that, in retrospect, acquire a more sinister cast. It's also when the set's close quarters suddenly seem like a cage from which there is no escape.

Director Knud Adams expertly guides the action from low-key, humorous backstage chatter to slow-burning tension, leaving room for nervous laughter as the circumstances become increasingly appalling; so deftly does he handle the opening of that gym bag that a woman in the front row, seated inches away from the action, kept muttering, "Oh no. Oh no." The play climaxes in a cat-and-mouse confrontation between two characters, informed by deception and betrayal even as the play-within-the-play unfolds on a video feed from the stage.

Adams gets finely calibrated performances from his company of four. Jack DiFalco bears watching as Colin, the cast's emotionally fragile rising star, haunted by failed relationships and a dire family history, his mood swings dictated by prescription medication. Lou Liberatore, outfitted with a truly terrible toupée, amuses as Robert, a professional pain in the neck who feels perpetually dismissed and disrespected. Mallory Portnoy captures Eileen's pretensions (her habit of saying, "J'agree"), her voracious love of gossip, and her propensity for schadenfreude: All but demanding that the production's reviews be displayed in the lobby, she says, "It is our duty to make people feel jealous for not realizing how amazing our show was gonna be." Riding herd on these bundles of nerves is Dana Scurlock as Mary, the stage manager, her smoothly maternal manner put to good use when danger appears; ironically, she is at her most appealing when committing a necessary act of treachery against an old friend.

Contributing to the ultra-realistic atmosphere are Siena Zoë Allen's costumes, Peter Mills Weiss' sound design (including the strange noises coming from the air duct and the murmur of voices heard in the auditorium), and Paige Seber's lighting, which, as far as I can tell, relies almost entirely on practical units. Popping up in what has been a dire July for theatre for so, Inspired by True Events is a nifty surprise, a novel twist on a well-worn genre that becomes increasingly gripping minute by minute. It offers a welcome blast of cool professionalism in this daunting heatwave. --David Barbour