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THE ALIENS Send This Review to a Friend
Playwright Annie Baker has the gift of being able to zero in on the rhythm with which her characters would be likely to talk coupled with an ear for making what they say sound authentic. She can also create characters who, while not seeming especially significant, such as those in “The Aliens,” reflect more than their specific situations in terms of the human condition.
Erin Gann and Michael Chernus play Jasper and KJ, types one might characterize as slackers, although each has more depth beneath the surface. They plop themselves down behind a Vermont coffee shop, which has become their ritualistic daily environment. They banter and little by little we get a portrait of their lives. The dialogue is often amusing.
The two undertake to educate to the ways of life—as if they know all the answers—an impressionable youth who works at the coffee shop. He is Evan Shelmerdine, played with just the right simplicity by Dane DeHaan, who seems hapless but likable. It is the interaction between him and his new-found mentors that keeps the play flowing. Evan has to tell the guys that they can’t stay there, but they are not the type to take rules to heart.
Sam Gold’s direction is appropriately low key, and Andrew Lieberman has created a realistic but uncomplicated back-of-a-coffee-shop setting, with a garbage bin included. The set-up seems absolutely right for the characterizations Baker serves us. “The Aliens,” while not earthshaking, is interesting as one more example of the skill of an author who recently received increased popularity for her “Circle Mirror Transformation,” which followed her excellent “Body Awareness.” At the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place, $45. Phone: 212-868-4444.
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