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Terrorism becomes a source of comedy in Catherine Butterfield’s “The Sleeper,” a dark comedy about post-9/11 anxiety and paranoia.
Gretchen, a frustrated wife and mother, begins an affair with her son’s math tutor, Matthew, only to increasingly worry that he may in fact be a terrorist. The acting and directing in this Aux Dog Theatre production are good overall, but they fail to mask the flaws in Butterfield’s script: a paper-thin plot, strange contrasts in tone and characters who are neither compelling nor sympathetic. Though the play does end with a clever twist, the journey there isn’t half as enjoyable as it should be.
Set in 2002, “The Sleeper” begins by introducing us to suburban mom Gretchen who, in addition to raising her child and keeping her marriage alive, now struggles to make sense of a post-9/11 world. To cope, Gretchen attends numerous seminars on terrorist subjects, including one on anthrax awareness, while her uninterested husband Bill tells her to “just know how stupid it is.”
It’s at this seminar that Gretchen happens to meet Matthew, a kind tutor who offers to help Gretchen’s son with his math homework. He does, and he and Gretchen also begin their affair.
It’s here that “The Sleeper” begins to have problems.
Butterfield’s script doesn’t give us much reason to care about Gretchen, and so her affair lacks interest. It’s also hard to see what exactly Gretchen finds so interesting about Matthew.
Butterfield’s script neglects to give either character much depth, and the actors playing the two roles — Taunya Crilly and Michael Girlamo — fail to find much themselves. It doesn’t help that they don’t have much chemistry with each other, so the numerous scenes of their affair lack passion or drama.
Even though director Joann Danella keeps the pace snappy and manages to move the action from scene to scene as nimbly as the script requires, the entire first act of “The Sleeper” would have been a bore without the excellent efforts of the supporting cast.
Stephen Zamora is often hilarious as Gretchen’s husband Bill, who has grown complacent in their marriage and is far more interested in his business. Kelle Senye also gets quite a few laughs as Gretchen’s alcoholic, aspiring-actress sister.
Both Zamora and Senye’s characters frequently break the fourth wall, warning the audience that this story will end badly. The cast is rounded out by Peter Alden, Jill Stacey and Anthony Alden, who handle multiple roles such as therapists, toy-store salesmen and bathroom mirrors with aplomb.
Near the end of the first act, Gretchen’s credit cards go missing and someone mysteriously tries to use them at her bank, even going so far as to answer personal questions about her. Gretchen suddenly realizes that Mattahew, the newest person in her life, may not be who she thinks he is. For the rest of the play, she becomes more and more convinced that Matthew is a sleeper cell, a terrorist in her midst.
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Unfortunately, the drama of these revelations doesn’t register as it should. The plot of “The Sleeper” ultimately offers very few concrete reasons to suspect that Matthew is, in fact, a terrorist.
This makes Gretchen, a character the audience should side with — or at least sympathize with — seem incredibly xenophobic, paranoid and hysterical. Her leaps in logic become so silly that it’s hard to take her, or the play, seriously.
Then, with no time to spare, comes the play’s twist ending. As it turns out, Gretchen is exactly as hysterical as she seems, and she pays for it. The playwright perhaps wanted to criticize how Americans could overreact after 9/11 and vilify people who simply seemed different. But the late attempt at satire in “The Sleeper” doesn’t hit home, because we never relate to the thinly drawn character the playwright gives us as a protagonist. It’s a problem that Aux Dog’s production of “The Sleeper” never quite figures out how to solve.
“The Sleeper”
by Catherine Butterfield
Directed by Joann Danella
Aux Dog Theatre
3011 Monte Vista Blvd. N.E.
Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.
Sundays, 2 p.m.
Runs through Sept. 16
$16 general admission
$13 students and seniors
For tickets and reservations:
254-7716 or visit auxdog.com
