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Synchronicity is ‘Expecting Isabel’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B
Nick comes from a family of Italians who take food like medicine. Give them a piece of bad news or a little stress, and their response is to make a sandwich.
But no amount of ham and salami can cure the challenges that beset Nick and Miranda, the baby-craving couple at the center of Lisa Loomer’s stroller-coaster ride of a domestic comedy, “Expecting Isabel.”
With great joy we announce that Synchronicity Performance Group has given birth to a big, bouncy entertainment that chronicles the heartbreak of infertility with rhythmic good timing and some imaginative staging by director Rachel May.
The performances are all first-rate, to the degree that they will make you forgive some of the odd casting choices. (Actors in the same age bracket play 30-somethings and their parents.) But with the exception of a couple of touching moments, the intent of the piece feels more roundly comic than pregnant with insight.
The idea that couples will go to ridiculous financial and emotional extremes in the name of producing a biologically pure offspring is worked to the max — testing the mettle of greeting card designer Miranda (Stacey Melich) and stay-at-home sculptor Nick (Dan Triandiflou).
No coffee. No wine. No this. No that.
When Miranda suggests that Nick get a sperm test, he shrieks at the thought. “I’m Italian!” Stoked on anxiety and hormones, Nick and Miranda eventually sell their apartment (to a couple having a baby, naturally) and appear to be on a path to losing everything, including their marriage. All because “he couldn’t knock up a hamster,” as Nick’s mom (Suehyla El-Attar) puts it so trenchantly. Playing to ethnic stereotypes, El-Attar’s character gets all the best lines.
Miranda’s mom (Tiffany Morgan) is a martini-swilling lush, and every time she appears, the tone gets all effervescent and fluttery in a Neil Simon-ish kind of way. Nick’s folks, on the other hand, seem to have stepped in from an Eduardo De Filippo comedy.
Clint Thornton’s sound design plays up the ’60s cocktail shtick, and Emily Gill’s costumes are always on the mark. But Joe Williamson’s set is awkward and nondescript. (If that’s a puppet theater onstage, it’s presumably for the children’s show running in repertory with “Isabel.”)
While Triandiflou delivers some of the best work I’ve seen him do, director May also introduces some exciting young talent into the city’s theatrical test tube.
At first appearing to be an extra, Lauren Vandemark blossoms in the second half of the show in a variety of roles. David Howard makes for a delightfully commanding comic presence, hamming it up as a toddler in a grocery store, a Russian taxi driver, a macho sperm machine, etc. — and possessed of the ability to look both goofy and sexy at the same time. And Maria Sager displays amazing versatility — as Nick’s bratty, frequently pregnant sister and later as a Latina mother who can’t afford to keep her baby. The latter sketch is authentic, and heartbreaking, the production’s finest moment.
“Expecting Isabel” is a fun new arrival — not especially deep, a little labored but never dull.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 7 p.m. Sundays. 8 p.m. May 11. Through May 11. $12-$20. Synchronicity Performance Group, 7 Stages, Back Stage, 1105 Euclid Ave., Little Five Points. 404-484-8636. synchrotheatre.com
Bottom line: More preggers with laughs than revelations.
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