"Swimming In The Shallows"

by Neal Weaver

Playwright Adam Bock might have called his play Dances With Sharks, since his love-struck hero, Nick (Robbie Cain), is dating hunky Mako (Guy Woodson), whom he met at the local Sea World. (A gentle, non-carnivorous shark, Mako sold Avon products before taking on the gig at the aquarium.) [more]

April 22 2004
BackStage West THEATER REVIEW

"Swimming In The Shallows"

by Madeleine Shaner

MetaTheatre Company (Dogs Barking, The Dead Eye Boy) proves once again that it has a good ear for naturalistic dialogue and a good company of committed actors who can keep it real. Director Anthony Meindl has a roaring momentum gene in his directorial DNA and a brisk awareness of where the laughs lie in a play, although this Adam Bock script is aptly titled. This tale of love and friendship, marriage and misery, obsession and the quest for the perfect life with love ever after, is set far from reality and has no need of a snorkel, for it never dives below the metaphorical surface of the limited body of water contained in an aquarium or a tide pool. The quirky characters are intent on staying out of the deep water. Carla Carla (Shannon Sweetmon) and Donna (Jennifer Fitzgerald) are flirting with the idea of a commitment ceremony, but there are too may flies in their bonding rituals to keep them serenely on track. For two, Donna can't give up cigarettes, and they consistently disagree with each other on everything to do with the wedding. Barb (Danielle Hoover) and Bob (Josh Levy), Baub and Baub as they are known in Rhode Island, are in a mixed marriage (Dubya's kind of couple), but Barb, threatened with a surfeit of material possessions, is "heavy" she says, because of them and anxious to give them away so she can pursue the Buddhist Path, without Bob. This leaves neighbor Nick (Robbie Cain), a cute and lovably promiscuous gay man, whose commitment phobia and bad choices are being funneled into his attraction to a handsome mako shark (Guy Woodson), who circles a tank in the local aquarium, seeking the deep water but meanwhile trying to avoid the fish tank's glass walls. Not everybody gets what they want, but their tenacity in the face of impossible dreams has to be admired.

By Joel Hirschhorn

The tragedy in "The Dead Eye Boy" is so preordained that there's no chance for surprise or hope, and it's largely a matter of how director Anthony Meindl creates tension while we wait for the inevitable. Caught in this constricting dramatic vise, Meindl demonstrates the darkly empathetic understanding of shattered individuals he showed in helming "Dogs Barking." [more]

February 21, 2003
LA Times THEATER REVIEW

"Dogs Barking" a Raw Portrait of Life After Love

By Philip Brandes, Special to The Times

When love dies, relationships become driven instead by power -- sometimes with devastating results, as we see in "Dogs Barking," an edgy, confrontational and very promising inaugural production from MetaTheatre Company at West Hollywood's Third Street Theatre.[more]