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Elemeno Pea delivers the full alphabet

by Jules Becker
Friday Nov 24, 2017

Elemeno Pea, Boston Playwrights Theatre, Boston, through November 19. 617-353-5899 or bpt.org

What constitutes real family? Buffalo native Simone seems to think that earning more than $100,000 a year, living in what she describes as her own carriage house and enjoying 500 feet of private beach at her employer's fancy summer home on Martha's Vineyard prove that she belongs.

Do the Architectural Digest-like estate's high maintenance trophy wife Michaela Kell and her successful unseen husband Peter agree? Where does Simone's unassuming but insightful visiting sister Devon fit in at this apparent paradise on earth?

Molly Smith Metzler, a Boston University playwriting program graduate who studied under Derek Walcott and Kate Snodgrass, spent a post-college summer on the island working at an upscale club and gained much more understanding than tips alone might provide. Her insights about family have found a satiric home in a breezily amusing yet strikingly edgy play entitled "Elemeno Pea," now in a rollicking Hub premiere at Boston Playwrights Theatre.

That initially disarming title eventually becomes clear and telling as Simone and Devon differ about which sister failed to identify the title letters as distinct parts of the alphabet, only to be cruelly called a 'retard' at school.

This difference actually becomes a kind of microcosm for the considerable distinctions between them and how they look at life and people. Simone thinks her newfound boyfriend Ethan, an associate of Peter's, is 'the real deal,' but Devon perceptively sees him as a flighty airhead. Simone believes that she and Michaela are best friends forever, but Devon sees through her exaggerated sense of security.

Later Michaela's emotional volatility takes its toll not only on herself but also on Simone. Michaela's trophy wife status, it turns out, is very much in jeopardy as Peter has pushed her out of his Jaguar, making her feel "like a homeless woman." As a scorned wife, she is even ready to turn on Simone during her escalating rage.

Despite Devon's sharp appraisal of Simone's precarious situation, Metzler is savvy enough as a young writer not to give the impression that she is all knowing and angelic. As part of the play's generally balanced dialogue, she has Simone remind Devon that she had helped her move to San Francisco at one point but the latter has not been keeping in touch.

Devon's mixed back story includes a disturbing and ultimately damaging online relationship with a boyfriend named Tim who is revealed to be a "raging sex addict." Even so, sibling solidarity ultimately overcomes a variety of challenges.

Director Shana Gozansky keeps all of these challenges and the sisters' rollercoaster ride of reactions and responses fast-paced and fully convincing. Lydia Barnett-Mulligan captures Simone's naiveté and vulnerability without turning her into a caricature. Amanda Collins finds all of Devon's initial reserve as well as her protective stance for Simone.

Samantha Richert gives full expression to Michaela's bitchiness and fury but does equally well with her disillusion about Peter and her life. Metzler has been working on the part of Michaela and now calls her 2011 work "a new play."

Michaela's moment of truth may need to begin a bit earlier, but Richert makes her transformation stunningly haunting. Barlow Adamson has the right cheery elusiveness as Ethan. The other standout besides Richert is Jaime Carrillo as Jos-B, a put-upon Puerto Rican caretaker who is wrongly identified as Cuban by Michaela. Carrillo's timing is rapier-sharp as he dispels prejudicial assumptions.

Jeffrey Peterson's summer home set-complete with stage left beach terrain-is one of the best designs to grace the BPT in decades. A stage right door becomes a kind of silent transparent character as audience members witness Michaela raging with Simone behind its glass.

Beyond edgy humor and witty banter, "Elemeno Pea" makes human caring and sibling power as basic as ABC. BPT's staging is letter perfect.