Fireworks figure prominently in “Luce,” about parents who realize that the child they adopted from Africa a decade ago isn’t what he seems. Sadly, JC Lee’s new play fizzles out rather than explodes.
The title character (Okieriete Onaodowan) is a high school student who has excelled both academically and athletically. “You ask any of the teachers here, let alone the coaches, and they’ll tell you that you couldn’t ask for a better role model for the other students,” Luce’s cultural studies teacher, Harriet (Sharon Washington), tells his proud mom, Amy (Marin Hinkle).
That comment comes with a caveat: Harriet has called Amy in to tell her about her son’s disturbing essay about an Eastern European nationalist who set off bombs in major cities. A subsequent search of Luce’s locker reveals a stash of illegal fireworks.
At first, Amy and her husband, Peter (Neal Huff), refuse to believe anything bad about the good-natured 17-year-old they rescued from war-torn Congo. But when Amy Facebooks one of Luce’s friends, Stephanie (Olivia Oguma), she relates a story about a disturbing incident involving sexual abuse at a party.
There are other hints as well that Luce harbors hostile impulses, and that he’s more than capable of deceiving his trusting parents. But while the play explores the difficulty of fully understanding anyone’s true nature, it strains for ambiguity to the point of becoming uninvolving. Director May Adrales elicits fine performances from the ensemble, but her muted staging never catches fire.