How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found: Not Quite What It Sounds Like

By Julienne Bilker in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 4, 2009 10:20PM

When we started reading the synopsis of Mary-Arrchie’s How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, we were skeptical. “If you had to disappear from your life, would you be able to delete yourself from Facebook?” Using Facebook as a jumping point to explore identity? Meh. But we read on. “It's an adrenaline-charged, apocalyptic journey to the edge of existence.” Anxious to see what exactly that meant, we checked it out. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be as exciting as promised.

Charlie is a young, overworked British ad executive on the brink of self-destruction who, frankly, seems like a douche. One imagines that perhaps not even a week before the play begins, he felt put together. But as it turns out, he’s embezzled quite a bit of money from his company, has one of those early '90s Wall Street-style coke habits, and he’s completely alone. Charlie is suddenly seized by the realization that everything in his world is fake, he’s a fraud, and he needs to escape. With no where else to turn, he seeks help from a sketchy character named Mike, presumably a friend of his recently deceased mother and con artist with all of the knowledge and skills necessary to help Charlie disappear.

Charlie (Carlo Lorenzo Garcia) is frenetic and unsympathetic from the beginning of the show - without any kind of contrast to a calmer, more collected Charlie, the panic he exudes peaks too early and the persistent mania that follows is exhausting. To Garcia’s credit, his energy never waivers - it’s a rough level to maintain for two hours. However, we were tired out long before then. And besides the fully charged pace, there are comedic moments that are more annoying than funny and choices that border on gimmicky. For example, Charlie repeatedly hears a high-pitched noise that no one else in the show hears, but the audience does. And it’s really high-pitched. And pretty awful. We thought it would have been more effective to see Charlie go crazy without being given the same headache he has.

Putting all of that aside -- which isn’t as unreasonable as it sounds as we know we’re often on the impatient side of cranky -- the script itself felt disjointed. We’re fairly certain that’s a purposeful choice, but we didn’t think it worked. It felt like the show went in a million different directions in the time leading up to Charlie visiting Mike (Kevin Stark), which happens around 45 minutes in. Did we mention Charlie may or may not be dead from the beginning? He has several scenes with the pathologist who conducted his autopsy (Shannon Clausen), a character whose plotline seemed totally extraneous. Maybe we just didn’t get it. The show moves quickly after Mike is introduced, and Stark adds some fun to the piece - we just wish we could cut out most of what happens before then.

There is actually one thing about this show we absolutely loved - the set. William Anderson has created an off-kilter world that is somehow both expansive and confining. This is the second show we’ve seen at Mary-Arrchie, and the second time we’ve been thoroughly impressed with Anderson’s use of space.

How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, through December 20. Mary-Arrchie Theatre, 735 W. Sheridan Road. Tickets $18-$22, 773-871-0442.