Beach People, the new play by Charles A. Duncombe at City Garage, turns cliches of beach life on their head. The main characters, Anna and Paul (Angela Beyer and Henry Thompson), lie sprawled out in bathing suits on their deck chairs under a hot sun (decor by Duncombe himself, a master designer). Behind them is a video screen showing clouds sailing by in a beautiful sky. He’s reading a book, but is it a traditional beach read, yet another hack thriller by James Patterson? Not in this play, it’s not.
Paul, we learn about two-thirds of the way into Duncombe’s “existential farce,” is reading about medieval theological fallacies...”the quest to “find order and sanity in the universe.” He launches into a long spiel about this quest, showing off his erudition and intellectual curiosity. It inspires this laconic response from Anna: “Not much of a beach book.”
This isn’t to suggest that she’s an air-head, though. Anna often sounds off herself on various weighty issues, such as the meaning of happiness and universal longing, though she’s also capable of turning coy and girlish, suddenly asking Paul if he finds her attractive.
Two other characters appear: one is Diana, a young girl in a bikini (Marissa Ruiz). Typically, she’d be portrayed as a bimbo. And while she does preen and show off her sexy body at times, she mostly raps about Eastern philosophy and the need to “get off the treadmill of hedonism.”
Rex, a handsome waiter (Kasey Esser), also operates against type. He might be a stud on the prowl, but he also weighs in philosophically: “Biologically we’re an anomaly. Big-brained creatures with frail, defenseless bodies. Evolution shouldn’t have deposited us here.”
That’s the comic side of Beach People, four near-naked sunbathers making professorial speeches about the human condition. But the play also has a dark side, revealed when the characters confess their fears and anxieties, show their pain and torment.
There is a lot of talk in the play— a torrent of it, really, but thanks to the verbal skills of the cast and to Frederique Michel’s deft direction–-the play never falters or sags. The impressive production overcomes the play’s verbosity, makes it work and sing.
