Matthew J. Palm: UCF’s play takes a look at stalking.
The blind date depicted at the start of “Boy Gets Girl,” onstage at Theatre UCF, would be funny if it weren’t so painful. The meandering small talk. The awkward pauses. The jokes that fall flat. It’s the human mating ritual in all its cringe-worthy glory.
But Rebecca Gilman’s play, which debuted in Chicago in 2000, is no comedy. It’s, first of all, a chillingly good thriller before it gives way to a rather less successful discussion of relations between the sexes.
Anchoring the production, Amanda Anne Dayton gives a strong performance as Theresa, one-half of the blind daters. Dayton taps into that most primal of human instincts — the desire for safety — and convincingly shows us how a self-assured woman can crumble when fear overtakes her life. Perhaps most important, Dayton doesn’t shy away from Theresa’s rough edges. She’s not always likable, but that makes her more real.
Confidently directed by Cynthia White, “Boy Gets Girl” keeps you on the edge of your seat like a good Hitchcock film. Theresa is set up with Tony, who frankly isn’t quite in her sophisticated league. Another character calls him a schmuck. But Tony is something far worse. Although Theresa tells him she’s not interested, he calls her repeatedly, showers her with flowers — and then begins making threats.
Sarah Yates’ lighting and especially Robert Dagit’s sound design, with its unnerving piano score, help ramp up the tension: What will Tony do next?
As Tony, Aaron Glogowski does a masterful job of appearing the nondescript nerd, while his flat vocal inflection — exploding with irrational bursts of temper — makes it clear he is not as benign as he seems. His presence looms over the play, even though his stage time is limited — a clever move by Gilman, demonstrating the influence Tony holds over Theresa based on just a few encounters.
“Boy Gets Girl” replaced a previously announced title in Theatre UCF’s season after that playwright was accused of sexual harassment. Tony’s actions don’t fall into the gray areas that make for thought-provoking debate, but Gilman raises interesting ideas about how the eternal trope of “boy pursues girl until she falls for him” might be teaching young men the wrong lessons.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t weave her notions into the plot particularly artfully, and the show’s tension dissipates in the weaker second act — although Mark Brotherton has a delightful turn as an aging scoundrel who makes exploitative films starring pneumatic young women.
Still, the play holds your attention until the end — and you won’t look at a “romantic” boy-gets-girl movie the same way again.