Unbound

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
IAMA at the Hudson Backstage Theatre
Through November 27

Unbound, by D.G. Watson, takes place in 2012. A man and a woman awaken in a hotel room in the same bed, neither having a clue who the other person might be. A common enough scenario in this day and age, the situation evolves into one much more unusual: The woman, Kate (Laila Ayad), is the daughter of a rabid Tea Party candidate for President, while the man, Michael (Chris Gardner) is an African-American documentary filmmaker, with close ties to a former Black Panther — a man who’s spent years in prison and who’s now looking to rebuild his life and re-establish himself and the Party. Moreover, Kate’s mom and Michael’s mentor are long-time foes; it was her actions as an FBI infiltrator that landed him in prison 30 years earlier.

Kate is no fan of her mother, either; an Occupy Wall Streeter, intense and dogmatic in her opposition to corporate malfeasance, Kate regards herself as a revolutionary. After a heated exchange with Michael, she decides to conspire with him to sabotage her mom’s campaign by making a video of the two of them having steamy carnal relations.

Act I extends for about an hour; in it Kate, short-fused and self-entitled (though she doesn’t see herself that way) takes frequent umbrage at the cooler, more down-to-earth Michael, blaming him for the sex they may or may not have had the night before, even though, like herself, he has no memory either way. Eventually their plan to copulate on camera for the purpose of political blackmail segues into some rough, raucous and racially tinged role-playing. Along the way director Jennifer Chambers, abetted by fight choreographer Ahmed Best, stages some hot and sexy scenes (reprising the fine directorial craft she displayed with Sheila Callaghan’s Bed earlier this year). While overwritten, this first act makes for generally satisfying theater. Gardner is especially on point as a guy more than willing to get down with an attractive woman but wary of what he senses might be a very messy outcome.

Watson might have ended his play there, as a solid two-character one-act looking at class, race and gender from the standpoint of two sharp politically-minded millennials.

If only he had. Because Act 2, which takes place in the same hotel room but with different characters, is a bust from the get-go. The central problem is its setup, which has Kate’s mother Dana (Gates McFadden) summoning Michael’s friend Ellis (Ellis E. Williams) to help her cover up a terrible and damaging deed (a potential spoiler I’m bound not to reveal). She’s done this despite the fact that she’s personally responsible for having put this man behind bars for 36 years, and despite, as a woman of power and influence, having access to any number of FBI and Secret Service people (not boy scouts, surely) from her own checkered past. It’s simply not a buyable circumstance — nor are any of the actions that follow upon it —especially those of McFadden’s character, as she attempts to lure this person whom she’s monstrously betrayed with promises of future largesse. By play’s end the story has spiraled to the realm of the ludicrous (Again, I’m constrained by a spoiler.). Chambers, who staged the action so expertly earlier, here seems to have gone AWOL, and the performers flounder.

IAMA at the Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; Sat., 3 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through Nov. 27. www.iamatheatre.com. Running time: 2 hours and 10 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.