12 BREA PROGRESS The Orange County Register Thursday, December 9, 1999

 

'Wish You Were Here': Make seeing it more than a wish

 

By Anne-Margret Bellavoine

Northern Lights

'Wish You Were Here' opened Dec. 2 at the Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills. This original play written and directed by award-winning author Joseph Hullett is a wry satire of contemporary American society.

We follow bumbling Abel Joiner's tribulations from Christmas Day 1999 to New Year's Day 2000 as he goes from long-time loyal employee of the ubiquitous Bulloni Company in working class Troy, N.Y., to unemployed drifter looking for a brighter future, to involuntarily committed patient at a state hospital, eventually overcoming all obstacles to find the true meaning of his life through his relationships with his pregnant wife and teen-age daughter.

It is a complex piece about our universal need to define our place in the brave new information age, overwhelmed by ever changing technology which dehumanizes people into redundant, expendable cogs in the ruthless multinational corporate machinery which lures us to believe our lives will be improved. John Childers is an able Abel, Tara Handy Turner his intense wife, Dottie, and Andrew Margolin his ambivalent brother, Mortie.

Bulloni's primary vocation is a fertilizer plant, a source of plenty of scatological jokes. There are several hilarious scenes. Abel falls for a classic pyramid boiler room scam cleverly labeled a "linked distributor empowerment team." Hullett draws upon his background as a psychiatrist to portray anal-retentive Dr. Upton Downer, convincingly played by Robert Davis, who doesn't realize that he too is a loser in the Bulloni rat race and labels simple Abel as a manic depressive when he is a nurturing human who dares to challenge big business.

THEATER REVIEW

What: 'Wish You Were Here'

When: 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 6 p.m. Sun. through Dec.19

Where: The Chance Theater, 5576 E. La Palma Ave. (near Cinemapolis), Anaheim Hills

Admission: $20, general; $18, seniors; $15, students with ID

Info: (714) 777-3033

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Grace Nassar is wonderful as Cyndee Joiner, the cool teen in search of her identity through various short-lived phases. David Pollack and Jeff Hellebrand are amusing as misguided and abusive middle managers.

Abel's loony, happiness-drive info-mercial pokes fun at religious telethons with their promise to deliver contentment by providing for the material needs of others, with the requisite postcard acknowledgement of having made a difference in someone's life.

The underlying message forces us to reflect on our own spot on the carousel of progress, question the validity of runaway monopolistic capitalism, and rethink the true values of human life.