If the actor’s nightmare is finding himself onstage without knowing his lines, the theatergoer’s is realizing he’s actually part of the play. That’s the dizzying idea behind “rogerandtom,” Julien Schwab’s absurdist comic exercise.
Presented by the aptly named Personal Space Theatrics, the show has the audience seated on two sides of the playing area depicting the outline of a New York City apartment. There are no walls, fourth or otherwise — just vertical wires and pieces of tape signifying its contours.
That space belongs to Penny (Suzy Jane Hunt), now separating from her husband, Richard (Richard Thieriot), whose possessions are packed in boxes. She’s awaiting the arrival of her brother Roger, whose contentious relationship with their playwright sibling Tom is apparently the subject of Tom’s new play.
It soon turns out that — spoiler alert — Roger (Eric T. Miller) is in the audience and is aghast to discover that he’s a character in the drama now taking place. Penny’s soon-to-be ex, Richard, is actually an actor named William, who guides the uncomfortable Roger through his paces.
Got all that? Good, because it gets better. While Richard/William and Roger are all too aware that they’re onstage, Penny remains oblivious, blithely sitting on a (nonfunctional) toilet and panicking when Roger seems to walk through walls.
The results are pretty funny, especially when Penny’s efforts to explain that their brother is “at the theater” turn into an Abbott and Costello-like routine, and Roger grows increasingly flustered at his part in all this.
“You two are good, man,” he tells his co-stars. “You sound like a real couple.” And, spotting Penny’s minuscule bed in her tiny bedroom, he asks, “What are you, a f – – king Hobbit?”
The performers go through their complex paces with admirable commitment — Thieriot is particularly funny in his double-edged role — and director Nicholas Cotz does an excellent job of making the complex action coherent.
Granted, the clever conceit eventually runs out of steam, and the underlying theme — about the thin line between artifice and reality — is overly familiar. But at its best, “rogerandtom” gives you the unsettling feeling of finding yourself part of an onstage drama for which you’re woefully unprepared.