When Detroit-native Linda (Lyndsay Allyn Cox) says, "to think that yesterday I was knee deep in snow, and today I'm in paradise," she doesn't realize that her paradise's inhabitants are on the brink of a collapse.
J.T. Rogers' play "The Overwhelming" is set in Kigali, Rwanda, on the eve of the country's infamous genocide. The story's protagonist is a white, Midwestern professor of international relations who has brought his teenage son and wife (formerly his student) to Kigali for a semester. He plans to write a book on the humanitarian efforts of his Rwandan college roommate with whom he has maintained a spotty correspondence. Almost immediately upon their arrival, the small family begins to realize that the things that seemed so clear in the States are much more complicated than they ever imagined.
The play is an ambitious one, taking on deep-seated racism, prostitution, parenthood, government control, genocide and espionage, just to name a few of the issues tackled. A whirlwind of trickery and distrust leaves the audience reeling. The cast may be small, but many times throughout the show, characters' lines overlap one another, or there are three languages spoken at one time: This loud, impatient discourse creates an atmosphere in which communication is exceedingly difficult, while at the same time the cast is so small that it's impossible for any actor to escape notice.
The play's use of language is extremely interesting. Using lines in English, French and Kinyarwandan, the playwright leaves many of his characters confused, lost in translation. What makes this effort so effective, though, is that the audience is never frustrated by confusion on stage — these miscommunications never have an adverse effect on the audience's understanding of the show's basic plot.
The script is beautifully written, and, for the most part, the cast does it justice. John Adekoje as the government official Samuel Mizinga is a particularly pleasant standout, navigating each of his diverse scenes with ease and giving the impression of a man who seems trustworthy, yet leaves one feeling uneasy — a difficult vibe to convey with only a few lines.
Unfortunately, the stronger actors appear in the smaller roles. Mason Sand as the slick Frenchman Jean-Claude Buisson is a delight to watch on stage, but the main character Jack Exley (Doug Bowen-Flynn) seems to struggle in the play's intimate space. With so much real human suffering surrounding him, Exley appears to be too concerned about getting tenure at his university back home and not concerned enough about the violent death of his first wife and son's mother. It seems as though the playwright intended Exley to be a sympathetic protagonist, but Bowen-Flynn overacts his character's petty concerns and almost unbelievable naïveté (shouldn't an IR professor know that the United Nations is sometimes ineffective?) to such a degree that the audience's sympathies begin to wane.
Exley's son, Geoffrey (Gabe Goodman), is similarly alienated from the audience. In an effort to give off an angst-ridden, teenage persona, Goodman loses much of the audience's sympathy with his intentionally poor enunciation and seeming ambivalence to the world around him.
Much of the actors' shortcomings stem from overacting in an intimate space. Exaggerated gestures and facial expressions are almost always necessary on stage, but Company One's small theater means that no audience member is more than four rows away from the front, so it requires no such effort. Only a slight miscalculation leaves viewers feeling like they've seen something overacted.
These shortcomings are small on the whole. Rogers' script could use a little tailoring where subplots are concerned, but his effort to pack in as much intrigue as possible definitely hooks his audience. The plot is so interesting, in fact, that viewers are willing to overlook small weaknesses. Watching the play is never an unpleasant experience. The cast's talent may be slightly uneven, but at the end of the day, they do an admirable job of carrying a promising new script out of Africa and into Boston.
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The Overwhelming
Written by J.T. Rogers
Directed by Shawn LaCount
At Company One through November 21
Tickets starting at $15
