Yellow Tree Theatre has launched an original comedy by theater co-founder, Jessica Lind that quite obviously is a comfortable fit for the area. Tucked away in a strip mall in Osseo, the relatively new theater has turned out a reasonably wholesome show, cleverly staged and skillfully performed before a full and appreciative audience. String, a breezy, laugh-a-minute romantic comedy featuring Lind’s husband and co-founder, Jason Peterson as “Ryan,†has a distinctly Neil Simonesque take on finding love in the modern world.
A recent grad student in English literature (“Raina,†played by Lind) stubbornly clings to her vision of true love, as interpreted in the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the like. We know of course that she’ll end up with Ryan, the pizza delivery guy (and that’s not its only similarity with The Poetry of Pizza from a recent Mixed Blood season). How we get there is the stuff of classic sitcom.
Lind is at her best in the comic scenes, firing off jokes in rapid succession. It’s easy to believe that the part of Ryan was written for Peterson. He utterly charmed the audience from his first appearance in Raina’s doorway. A good part of the success of this comedy is Peterson’s refreshingly natural line delivery.
Lind also fashions a nifty subplot as a foil for both lead characters. Jessie Rae Rayle as Raina’s sister, Joy, questions her husband, Cliff’s, love for her when sex takes second place to sleep. Rayle and Stuart Gates as Cliff worked a little too hard at the acting, but their characters were also drawn closer to over-the-top. The subplot, in any case, works nicely.
“Derek†(Topher Jordan), Raina’s former professor and now her boyfriend, provides a clearly defined contrast to Ryan. He is clearly more into himself than her and well on his way to academic stuffiness – not the idealized romance Raina imagines.
The humor bubbles along with ease until it hits the serious stuff, when the dialogue gets lost and can’t seem to find its way out. In fact, it had a hard time ending, passing up one opportunity after another (some more successful than others at prolonging the “suspenseâ€) until we were ready to accept whatever resolution presented itself.
At first we don’t care that there is little reason given for Ryan’s obsession with Raina because the scenes between them are so funny, but it went on for such a long time with nothing in return from her that the rightness of this destined relationship got harder to buy into – especially since Ryan never really tells us what he sees in her.
Neil Simon had a way of dealing with this: his serious dialogue was really, really short. I would think trimming the floundering arguments and internal dialogues would tighten this piece into a play with big commercial potential. In the end, the sentiment rings true and makes for delightful entertainment.
String runs through October 24.