There's a fine line between laughing with people and laughing at them. In Georgia Ensemble Theatre's "The Boys Next Door," those people happen to be mentally impaired, which makes Tom Griffin's play an even more delicate balancing act -- one that director Tess Malis Kincaid and her cast strike with steady aplomb.
Such showy roles can be the ultimate challenge for an actor: Think of Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man,” Sean Penn in “I Am Sam,” Geoffrey Rush in “Shine” or Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump.” But they can be challenging for an audience, too, in terms of prematurely grating on its nerves or overstaying a welcome: Think of those four movie characters living together in one tiny apartment, and that’s the potential for overkill that “The Boys Next Door” largely avoids.
“They never change,” observes social worker, Jack (David Kronawitter), about roommates Arnold (John Benzinger), Lucien (Spencer G. Stephens), Norman (Luis R. Hernandez) and Barry (Chad Martin), all grown men of varying “deficiencies” trying to make it in the real world. The beauty of Griffin’s writing, though -- and of the performances Kincaid elicits from her four co-stars -- is that they aren’t simply one-note characters.
In a fantastical moment of clarity, for example, the more severely “retarded” Lucien essentially steps out of himself to deliver an intelligent, articulate monologue decrying the state of his own mind. In another lovely scene, the similarly childlike Norman and his girlfriend Sheila (Cara Mantella) meet for their weekly community center dance; at first, their moves are awkward and tentative, until, with a swelling of music and a shift in the lighting, they suddenly imagine themselves gliding across the floor with the grace of Fred and Ginger.
Stephens is always good, but Hernandez is uncommonly so, based on much of his work to date in minor musical roles. The same could be said for the typically reliable Martin and the often problematic Benzinger. Martin cuts a touching, tragic figure as the schizophrenic Barry. For Benzinger’s part -- given the actor’s knack for playing smug, and the potentially precious or petulant aspects to this character -- his anything-but-marginal Arnold is most disarming of all, a pitch-perfect blend of well-timed physical exertion and skillfully detailed “behavior patterns.”
Unfortunately, Kronawitter makes a disappointingly drab straight man, whose periodic asides to the audience tend to interrupt the story rather than illuminate it. His Jack isn’t compelling enough to warrant our interest in his personal life outside of work. And his emotional bond with the “boys” lacks depth, which undermines a lot of the dramatic tension when he considers leaving them to take another job.
Whether Jack is in the happiest place he’s ever been, or the saddest, is ultimately beside the point, when the difference doesn’t really register either way.
Theater review
“The Boys Next Door”
Grade: B
Through Sept. 19. Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m; Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. $19.50-$33. Roswell Cultural Arts Center, 950 Forrest St., Roswell. 770-641-1260. get.org.
Bottom Line: Distinguished by a splendid quartet of actors.
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