Blue/Orange

All elements are in top form and work together in The Promethean Theater production of Blue/Orange: worthwhile play, direction with a vision, performances that deliver, and sound and light designs that set the stage, then get out of the way.

TPT knows how to make an entrance: This is its first production as resident professional theater company at Nova Southeastern University. After leasing storefront space last year in northern Miami-Dade County, it has found a home in a 168-seat proscenium stage auditorium on the second floor of a college classroom building in Broward County.

Pre-curtain recorded music for this three-actor production comes from a smooth jazz trio that ends suddenly in white-out lighting and a few bars of techno-percussive pop that seems to take its cue from the chrome chairs on stage. The setting is a consultation room at a psychiatric hospital in London the day before Christopher, a patient there for a 28-day evaluation, is due to be released. The decision will be made by an ambitious young doctor, Bruce, or perhaps by his mentor, Robert, an underachiever who nevertheless is wise to the ways of office politics. But the themes here go beyond the expected tug of war for the soul of an innocent.

This is the Southeast U.S. premiere of Blue/Orange, which was first produced in London in 2000 and won the 2001 Olivier Award for Best New Play. Margaret M. Ledford directs with confidence -- not only in her actors but in the audience's ability to keep up with dialogue that even in longish speeches is delivered at a rapid clip and in clipped and convincing British accents.

Chris (played by Sheaun McKinney in a frenetic performance that is never a caricature) is a 30ish black man. He's thirsty and hyperactive, perhaps because of the medication he receives at the hospital. He believes people are watching him -- perhaps because they are. He sees a bowl of oranges as blue—perhaps due to the influence of some literary reference. And he wants to go to Africa when he's released—perhaps because his father is Idi Amin.

The doctors, of course, disagree on what to do. Bruce (Christopher Kauffman) has an ambition shaped by caution. He hasn't yet settled on a diagnosis of Chris. The mentor, Robert (London-born Colin McPhillamy), brings a degree of common sense to the institutional process. But author Penhall raises the prospect that common sense isn't necessarily benign, that annoying behavior isn't necessarily symptomatic of a sickness, and that what is unlikely isn't necessarily untrue.

It's a deft production, with a nice touch above the stage: on one side, orange gels cover some lights, on the other side, blue gels. They don't intrude on the naturalistic lighting of the institutional day room. They just hang there, as if from a tree.