Spoilers ahoy!
For those of you who don't know, a "two hander" in theatre parlance is a play with only two characters who pretty much share the stage for the entire performance. If this sounds hard, it is. Very hard. Especially in a full ninety-minute play. Even more when the play is one long scene.
If I Needed Someone by Neil LaBute is just such a play--demanding an enormous concentration without letup for almost two hours.
Jules (Devin Davis-Lorton) is an animator who's invited Jim (Adam Langsam) back to her apartment during a part. She is quite drunk and with this setup one might expect a work of horror a la Ira Levin. Instead, we are witness to a wildly awkward dance between two people trying to connect--all the while each creates an obstacle course of their personal issues. Which can be funny! And sometimes, is! More, it can be heart-breaking. Again, it sometimes is. Just as it is sometimes simply educative, sometimes touching, sometimes deeply uncomfortable (for so very many reasons) and sometimes very hope-ful.
These actors accomplish a Olympic level effort, not only in terms of bringing truth to their every word (no small feat) but in listening to each other (sometimes), allowing themselves to change (eventually). In the process we learn to know them, learn a lot of their individual hopes and pains. More, we even reach that special point when sooner or later we say quietly to ourselves "that is me."
Because the two person cast--while proving themselves capable of this acting marathon--have a very good script with which to breathe life into a fictional tale on stage. It feels remarkable complete in its portrait of these two people, living as we do, in a time of change and not really sure precisely how to navigate their own time. Again, like us. Each ultimately wants very much to reach out, and each ultimately navigates those obstacle courses mentioned earlier. From a slightly slow start, the script gives us a powerful series of moments and revelations between people who want to connect, want to understand each other, want someone to not give up (while of course not being a predator, a liar, a psycho or creep of some kind). The conclusion, simple in some ways while intensely complex in others, reminds us we can indeed connect. Loneliness is not incurable. We may be doomed to die, but we are not doomed to live totally alone.
Or we don't have to be.
Kudos to everyone involved, including of course director Frederique Michel!
If I Needed Someone plays Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays 4pm until Sunday, September 22, 2024 at the City Garage, 2525 Michigan Ave. Building T1, Santa Monica, CA 90404