Plunge 

Reviewed by Terry Morgan 
Son of Semele Ensemble 
Through June 17 

James Joyce in his A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man famously wrote, “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” That sentiment describes a lot of historical fiction, in which the sins of the past reverberate endlessly down decades or centuries into the present. Playwright Tom Jacobson is clearly interested in this subject and has written a trilogy of plays called The Ballad of Bimini Baths that tracks 50 years of Los Angeles history. The first of these works, Plunge, gets a solid, well-performed production at Son of Semele Ensemble, although the play itself seems somewhat misconceived.

In 1918 Los Angeles, art curator Everett Maxwell (Gary Patent) meets priest Edward Reynolds (Dan Via) at a fancy fundraising event. The two hit it off and decide to talk privately at the Bimini Baths, a local hot springs bathing establishment. Edward is feeling guilty about something and wants to confess to Everett, sensing that the two of them have something in common. As the evening progresses, secrets are revealed, and reality becomes twisted until nothing is what it initially seemed.

As Edward, Via presents an intriguing mix of regret and threat, shifting from the “aw shucks” Oklahoma priest to a darker, more imposing character with impressive ease. He also shines in multiple smaller roles, from a trusting boy scout to various bath house attendants. Patent is very good as the seemingly guileless Everett, offering a high-energy, detailed performance. He too takes on several roles and is especially good as a young bath house attendee of Edward’s acquaintance.

Director Matthew McCray gets great work from his actors and manages to keep up with the script’s frequent shifts in time, which is no small feat. Jacobson has created an intricate puzzle of a play, a matryoshka doll where one truth lays nested within another, only to find another nested within that. The downside of this is that, while the work is clever, it’s also unnecessarily confusing. The dazzling structure obscures the drama and keeps us from caring about the characters or the events, which is unfortunate.

Jacobson is an undeniably talented writer, and hopefully the other installments of the Bimini Baths trilogy will focus less on showy style and more on why this history is worth excavating from the nightmare.

Son of Semele Theater, 3301 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles; Tues., 7 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m.; through June 17. www.sonofsemele.org. Running time: approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes with no intermission.