Can I just start with the set? “Tracy Jones,” a “rolling world premiere” play at Island City Stage, takes place at the fictional Jones Street Bar & Grill—“The Place For Wings and Things!” And Ardean Landhuis’ design is a triumph of cluttered suburban grill décor.
Loud, nostalgic and appropriately tacky, it’s a space of middle-class comfort so familiar that you’ll almost feel you’ve patronized it: the tin beer and liquor signs and board games and vinyl records tacked onto the walls, the cartoon chicken logos and branded merchandise, a paint job the color of varying shades of mustard, and the stained-glass overhead lights adding a touch of ersatz elegance. You can soak in these details like a Buffalo wing in a ramekin of blue cheese, and for a split second, you’ll feel you’re not watching a play so much as eavesdropping in the function room of such a watering hole in Anytown, U.S.A.
This illusion is short-lived, however, as most of this rendition of Stephen Kaplan’s new comedy isn’t so smoothly convincing. On the contrary, it’s an example of a first-rate director (Andy Rogow) and a well-chosen cast working very hard to be mildly amusing, and succeeding only in fits and starts. Kaplan’s script is a lot like its protagonist, Tracy Jones (Niki Fridh): awkward around the edges, desperate to be liked, fumbling for an identity.
Jones, isolated and friendless, laboring in an unfulfilling job as a bank teller, has booked the party room at the bar and grill for an unusual gathering: She’s invited every female Tracy Jones from across the country for a wings-and-games convention predicated on nothing but their shared common name. It’s not going well: We’re more than an hour into the party, and Jones’ only company is her over-eager server (Sara Grant), identified in the grill’s signature argot as the “Party Host with the Most.”
Finally, another Tracy Jones (Irene Adjan) trickles in, and then another (Matthew Buffalo, his maleness notwithstanding), each of them a chaos agent of sorts, as the O.G. Tracy’s tidily organized itinerary unravels. Secrets unfurl and calamities compound, as celery sticks become projectiles and hot sauce spatters on the wall like so much blood.
It’s all rather sitcommy, starting with Kaplan’s script, which unlike Landhuis’ set does not seem to exist in a recognizable reality. Every element onstage is an accident waiting to happen, characterizations are exaggerated, and a general sense of outsized daffiness is the show’s uneven tenor. One only needs to reflect back to a successful screwball comedy at Island City, “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” to notice how often “Tracy Jones” misses its marks. Its farcical moments of action, in particular—spilled drinks, doors slamming on faces, the inevitable Heimlich maneuver—fail to land.
Eventually, Kaplan’s schematic play wends its way toward the revelation of a tragic backstory, but because it’s a narrative element that arrives completely out of left field, the audience has no emotional tether to it. The three Tracys do seem to share an often-relatable sentiment, as vocalized in the play: “I want to be someone other than me.” This feeling could be enough to build a script around, but this largely silly experiment is, like his unstable characters, a work in progress.
“Tracy Jones” runs through June 18 at Island City Stage, 2304 N. Dixie Highway, Wilton Manors. Tickets are $40 and up. Call 954/928-9800 or visit islandcitystage.org.
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