Incognito

Reviewed by Stephen Fife
Son of Semele Ensemble
Through April 7

RECOMMENDED

I am happy to say that Nick Payne’s mind-bending play Incognito at Son of Semele is very much worth the attention of any devoted theatergoer and does not suffer the fate of Constellations, another work of his produced at the Geffen Playhouse in 2017. That remains burned in my memory as one of the worst productions I’ve ever seen, as Ginnifer Goodwin’s one-note performance reduced Payne’s multi-colored Cubist style to a monotone of slate gray. As I wrote at the time: “Poor Nick Payne! By Goodwin at the Geffen slain.”

Where Constellations took a sledgehammer to the traditional man-woman relationship play, fracturing it metaphysically into several non-linear scenes, Incognito applies that sledgehammer to the very notion of narrative by examining how our brains put together disparate scenes and sensations to form our sense of identity (identity being the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our place in society and in the universe). More specifically, the play consists of three fractured narratives that are thematically-related and explore the way our brains function, but otherwise have nothing to do with each other.

As the Son of Semele press release states: “Incognito weaves together three personal narratives…: the first riffs on the strange-but-true tale of Thomas Harvey, the American pathologist who abducted the brain of Albert Einstein, hoping to unlock the secret of his genius. The second, also based on fact, tracks the celebrated case of ‘Henry,’ a man unable to form new memories following a failed operation. Finally, there is the story of a freshly-divorced neuropsychologist struggling to find reasons for hope in the face of cold hard facts.”

I have a jump on other audience members in having seen a previous production at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura in 2017. Incognito requires four actors to play 21 roles, with no costume changes or other visible props to distinguish the characters’ identities other than a slight shift in emphasis from the actor. Having experienced this series of fragmented scenes and hairpin transitions once before, it was much easier for me to follow the various threads and enjoy the puzzle palace that the playwright and actors build in the course of the evening. I do think that Don Boughton, who directed this production, does a better job of knitting these pieces together than the director at the Rubicon did.

Son of Semele’s intimate theater is also better suited to this play than the more formal and traditional Rubicon stage. The performers — Debba Rofheart, Sarah Rosenberg, Dan Via and Alex Wells — are all company veterans, whose familiarity with the space and with each other helps enormously in making us feel at home with this often disconcerting material. All four are excellent, with Rofheart and Rosenberg proving particular standouts.

At this stage, some of the sequences are sharper than others, but this will likely change in the course of the run. Keep your eye out for Dan Via’s cynical attorney and Sarah Rosenberg’s coquettish waitress — two minor characters whom these wonderful actors manage to bring to vivid and surprising life.

The stage design is a bit disappointing: wooden scaffolding against a dark background. I suppose it’s a metaphor of sorts for the brain’s connective tissue, but it doesn’t really make for a crystallizing image, nor does it provide a cohesive environment for these disparate scenes to play out. On the other hand, James Fererro’s sound design works wonderfully to transform abstract moments into more concrete ones, and helps to create a world that these adventurous actors can inhabit.

This is a very good production of a challenging play about the mysterious workings of the brain, and how it constructs narratives to make the world a more palatable place for us to live. What is the world really?  Well, one character towards the end of the play cries out in despair that our lives are simply “a blip within a blip within an abyss.”

Then again, maybe it isn’t.

Son of Semele Theater, 3301 Beverly Blvd., Rampart Village; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m.; Tues., 7 p.m.; through Apr. 7. Sonofsemele.org. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.