At opening night this evening I watched the lives of four groups of people hurtle past me at breakneck speeds and at various points in time, all summoning the courage and the will to survive for one more tomorrow in Brian McDermott’s disarming play about lives unfolding. I was told the play was originally a series of one acts, now combined into this vignette of blended glances at four couples on various modes of transportation:
1939 Sara Fawn, Thomas Rush, Drake Nester - a man and woman, mismatched by age, circumstance, and degree of passion, perform the Dance of Denial in a sleazy motor lodge. A crazed detective serves as an unhinged third partner. 
1959 Pamela Wallace, Suzy Hoffman, Ara Barlieb - a long suffering couple board a Caribbean cruise ship drifting inexorably toward marital shoals; an uninvited widow complicates the couple’s voyage.
1979 Tom Harrison, Lauri Beth Rogers, Alex Racines - a business¬man on a transcontinental train feels his corporation has exiled him to a post in a far off Canadian gulag; a very sleepy woman confuses matters on board the train.
2019 Brian Wendt, Brian McDermott, Steven Rosenblum - a claustrophobic man is strapped into a plane seat by his long-suffering co-dependent partner. An airline attendant does his best to help soothe the bickering couple.
At first the play seemed simple enough. Four lives unfolding, none of them too happily. The cheating couple in the motel aren’t happy with each other; the gay men on board the airplane are having one hissy fit after another; the businessman on the train is unhappy with his new assignment and flirting unsuccessfully with the attendant; and the couple on board ship is about to file their divorce papers. What’s the fun about any of that' Nothing at all I grant you.
But my friends, it is the journey and not the destination that makes this play come to life.
And also the companions along the way. Each of the couples has a third partner who adds zest to the story: salt to the meal. By this I mean to say that every story is enacted with a certain kind of penache, a type of flair, by the main couple, which holds one’s interest throughout the production. And the third party interacting with each couple is the icing on the cake which makes the piece come fully to fruition.
In the 1939 motel, Sara Fawn is a luscious comic ‘other woman’, longing for more than the philandering straight man, excellently underplayed by Thomas Rush can give her. Their dilemma is interrupted by the luminously crazed detective played by Drake Nester who is sent in by the wronged wife. Life goes haywire when the philandering husband gets unhinged and pulls a gun.
Aboard the 1959 cruise ship, Ara Barlieb is a soft-spoken philosophical gentleman who is about to spring a divorce on his long-suffering wife, played by Pamela Wallace, who is apparently hardened to the life she has endured with him. Or is she' A flirtatious and charming widow, played by Suzy Hoffman, appears and distracts both partners for a period of time.
On the 1979 Canadian train, Tom Harrison plays a harried and inebriated businessman who has been assigned to a remote wilderness outpost, and he is desperate to find solace with the only person who can give him some comfort, the comically resourceful train stewardess, a friendly Canadian played by Lauri Beth Rogers. Matters are complicated on the journey by Tom’s seat mate, with a definitive portrayal by Alex Racines of a long-suffering passenger who may or may not be, um, dead.
And in the no-holds barred 2019 airline, where chaos reigns with the wildly funny antics of Brian Wendt, a paranoid passenger terrified of flying and complemented perfectly by the straight man delivery of his boyfriend’s lines (and the play’s author) Brian McDermott, the duo are a match made in heaven for comic genius. The cherry on the cake is the occasional appearance of the calm and soft-spoken attendant played by Steven Rosenblum, who is exactly what we need to calm ourselves and catch our breath from all the previous mayhem.
And yet dear readers, in this unusual play, the playwright also manages to find a hint of resolution in each of these vignettes. There is nothing obvious, nothing overstated: just a whimsical flirt with the positive. Enough to set you thinking. And that’s something else to ‘look out’ for.
Four sets of transportation backdrop windows painted by Nora Oswald.
“Thanks for the Memories” sung live onstage by Pamela Wallace and Ara Barlieb
Production directed by Ara Barlieb and written by Brian McDermott
Shows at 8 pm June 10, 11, 17 & 18 at 8 p.m. and June 12 & 19 at 2 p.m.