‘Pony’ finds laughter, light in direst circumstances

Andrea Lepcio’s “Looking for the Pony” examines the meaning of time, family and love through the eyes of a woman suffering from breast cancer and her all-loving, ever-supportive stepsister.

A new play that’s getting separate productions by Atlanta’s Synchronicity Performance Group and New York’s Vital Theatre, “Looking for the Pony” finds laughter and light in the direst circumstances —- and deserves a bouquet of pink ribbons for investing its dark subject matter with nearly equal doses of humor and poignancy.

You may quibble with the play’s style (kind of flitty) and tone (a bit whimsical). But it’s virtually impossible not to be moved by its depiction of compassion, courage and humanness —- or to resist the high-caliber performances that director Lisa Rothe coaxes from her cast of four.

While Lauren (Jennifer Levison) maintains a sense of purpose and positivism in the face of doom, sister Oisie (Suehyla El-Attar) is unconditional in her kindness, thanks to her own insecurities about her youthful choices, career success and fear of becoming a professional writer.

Oisie (a West Coast lesbian) decides to go to grad school at almost exactly the same time that Lauren (an East Coast mother of two) is taken ill. Thus their story becomes a hopscotch of transcontinental flights; encounters with indifferent doctors, begrudging insurance people, weepy employees and grumpy old men; and flashbacks to the bonding rituals of their past.

With its arsenal of quirky supporting characters (played with comic brio by the terrific Stacy Melich and John Benzinger), “Looking for the Pony” may remind you a bit of Synchronicity’s “Expecting Isabel,” from last year, in which an infertile woman (also played by Melich) takes every conceivable step to have a child. Both stories are glutted with devastating and costly medical complications. Neither offers revelations of great depth or insight.

“Looking for the Pony” —- named after the old story about a couple of kids who burrow through a pile of manure, hoping to find the animal who made it —-unspools in quick pithy sound bites, innumerable scenes and mannered touches. (For instance, phones don’t ring but are announced by actors who blare the words: “Phone call!”) As the action unfolds, the play becomes cluttered by too many random, stream-of-consciousness images and anecdotes.

And yet, Levison delivers a portrait of stoicism studded with generosity, and El-Attar’s character only occasionally wallows in sentimentality and self-pity. If Lepcio’s technique falters, Lauren and Oisie never lose their childlike ability to “see the bright side of any situation.” For cancer patients, that may be the best medicine of all.

THEATER REVIEW

“Looking for the Pony”

Grade: B-

8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 7 p.m. Sundays. Through March 8. $18-$23. Synchronicity Performance Group, 7 Stages Back Stage Theatre, 1105 Euclid Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-484-8636, synchrotheatre.com.