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‘Deep Blue Sound’ Review: Searching for Orcas and Longing for Community

When a group of friends and neighbors carol on a Pacific Northwest island, they create an amusing cacophony. Chirping in mismatched tones and keys, standing next to each other but not together. The community of Abe Coogler’s new play, Deep Blue Sound, is similar, made up of people who are friendly and supportive, but who can’t be fully connected.

Although it is an ensemble play, part of it is Clubbed Thumb’s Popular Incubator Series Summerworksand in a fairly evenly narrative (although mostly sketchy, with so many characters packed into a brief 90 minutes), a woman named Ella is an emotional appear as the center.

Part of the reason is that she has the most heartbreaking story. She was dying of cancer and decided to take advantage of Washington’s death with dignity laws. And that’s also because the sad, scared, and angry Ella is played by the talented Marian Plunkett, who can turn the simple act of staring into space into devastating insight.

Ella is part of a small group of locals trying to figure out why a pod of killer whales that have visited the surrounding waters for generations has gone missing in action. Annie (Crystal Finn), the ‘iconic mayor’, leads a less-than-effective investigation. Amateur whale detectives include Ella’s friend John (Thomas Jay Ryan) and horse groomer Les (Jean Leslie Harding), both of whom tend to reach out to strangers. I have.

All the great actors in Allin Arbus’ work manage to fill in the lines of the script, constantly throwing out unexpected interpretations that make you laugh here and choke there (what character the actor is playing). Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re acting). . For example, when Finn is playing a witty mayor who is a little intoxicated with power or intoxicated with a lack of power, he is also playing a mother who is dismayed when her son asks her what she thinks about her dance practice. But almost every line makes me laugh. Mom’s hesitation is both heartbreaking and hilarious.

If there is something that connects all these people, it is not so much that they are islanders as it is their painful loneliness. Their attempt to figure out what happened to the killer whale, a highly social animal, suggests that Coogler (“Kill Floor,” “Fulfillment Center”) sneaks into his collective portraits. One of those great touches.

Kudos to him for not knocking us over the head with the heavy-handed psychology that so many shows are burdened with, even if “Deep Blue Sound” is a bit of a dead end. There’s a rather conventional heart beating beneath the eccentric style, and the killer whale plot feels like an excuse to bring the characters together. Indeed, the song also leads to a beautifully melancholy coda about the reassuring comforts of a familiar home. This is something that anxious islanders can especially appreciate.

deep blue sound
Until June 15th at the Wild Project in Manhattan. clubbedsam.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

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