Photo: Chris Baldock
Meteor Shower is a
wild piece set in California among what
looks like the idle Californian middle class in a glossy suburbia.
Outside, the heavens are lit up; inside two couples play mad suburban games.
Corky (Jess Beange) and Norman (Sachin Nayak) are welcoming Gerald ( Anto Hermida) and Laura ( Maxine Eayrs) for what looks like a small gathering to watch the meteor show happening in the skies above. But this is a script by comedian Steve Martin, so the growing slide into the manic and surreal is not unexpected.
It looks initially as if the visiting couple will prove the more powerful. Corky and Norman look no match for the somewhat socially overpowering Gerald and Laura. The visitors are eventually upstaged as the gears shift and the play slides into alternate time lines and a good deal of manic comedy.
Beange’s Corky goes from a slightly diffident hostess to a rip-roaring embracer of changes in the time line. Husband Norman (Nayak) sheds an initial reticence for a near death scene and a bit of aggression. Hermida’s Gerald reveals timidity and sensuality as well as a manipulative streak and Eayrs’ Laura is not necessarily as confident and controlling as she might appear at first.
It’s all played on a thrust stage with a screen full of the universe and a ceiling full of little lights for stars. The meteors are never far away.
If there is a problem it is in the swing and the flow of the piece overall. Martin’s brand of comedy can have its introspective side but this play has a bit more in common with the Marx Brothers and could use more of that kind of pace.
However, it’s a good entrant in Mockingbird’s ongoing repertoire which seems to be pleasingly happy with plays that are a challenge.