Keep an eye on the gifted young people behind An Introduction to Heat Transfer: playwright Haley Jakobson and actors Matisse Haddad and Kaela Shaw. During their time at Boston University, they worked on the piece together, putting it up as a student project and then refining text and performance as they got feedback from mentors and audience. The positive response encouraged them to keep the play alive after graduation. The three of them, joined by director Clay Hopper, raised enough money to rent a space in Los Angeles, put in lights and sound, build a set, do the necessary marketing and pr.
It’s a pleasure to report that their valiant and idealistic efforts have paid off. Heat Transfer, which deals with the stormy relationship between two ill-matched college roomies, has an authentic feel to it. Lila (Haddad) and Emma (Shaw) may be opposites–the former is scatty, neurotic and hot-blooded; the latter repressed, controlled and bookish–-but as the play proves, opposites can also attract. The two girls get on each other’s nerves and fight like hell, but they also manage to grow up, understand, like, and respect each other. As the playwright explains in a program note, ”As the first law of thermodynamics states, energy cannot be created or destroyed–only exchanged.”
Highfalutin theories aside, Heat Transfer works because Haddad and Shaw do yeoman work on stage, creating three-dimensional undergraduates who are always believable, even when they are doing outrageous and nutty things, like having sex with the pizza delivery-boy.
There is a lot of raunchy humor in the play, but it never overwhelms the essential warmth and humanity. Jakobson, Haddad and Shaw have injected a fresh burst of energy and creativity into the L.A. theater scene, and I look forward to seeing what the three of them will do in the future.
