Theater: Not Even White-Out Will Help

Tony Glazer’s new two-act family drama Stain purports to hold explosive secrets, but too much of it feels rehashed from previous, better works. There’s the typical teenage guy relationship between 15-year-old Thomas (a superb Tobias Segal) and his pot-smoking slacker friend George (Peter Brensinger). There’s the tortured father-son dynamic between Thomas and his father Arthur (Jim O’Connor), divorced from Thomas’ mother Julia (Summer Crocket) for three years now, and still refusing to tell his son why. And of course, there’s a sassy grandmother, in Thomas’ life for the very first time since Julia left home to get married, and who favors Botox over being called Grandma. Just for kicks, Glazer has also thrown in a woman twice Thomas’ age, with whom he had a very brief sexual relationship.

The titular stain, by the way, refers to what too many “Ectoplasm Girls” (the kind you screw just because they’re available, according to Arthur) can leave you with. Referenced again and again, those stains are eventually literalized in a painfully obvious way, to the detriment of the show.

Unfortunately, what promises to be at least an interesting look at various topics so beloved by playwrights—families, sexual dynamics and the ever-popular coming-of-age—is undone by a poorly balanced cast. While Segal and O’Connor have a painfully realistic rapport as the baffled son and the angry man who has no idea of how to relate to him, the other actors don’t fare as well. As the crux of most of the play’s drama, Crockett barely registers, despite being given plenty of melodramatic dialogue and copious chances to chew the scenery. And as the sexy older woman, the diminutive Karina Arroyave just looks like a 21st-century Minnie Mouse in her business skirt and white sneakers. But the most intriguing actor on stage is the just out of retirement Joanna Bayless as Theresa, Thomas’ grandmother.

Though she struggled with her lines during the performance I attended (and often embellished them with an accompanying gesture that arrived a beat too late), Bayless remained riveting in a strange way. White blonde hair pulled back by a colorful scarf, she delivered her lines with a gusto that was reminiscent of fading B-film actresses touring in stock. And while her approach to the material often saved it from sounding recycled, her entire performance feels so stylized that Theresa doesn’t seem to be in the same room with the rest of the characters. But when Bayless leeches the coyness from her tone, a portrait of a woman devastated by life and coping only on the surface begins to appear. If she could master the slight lisp that she’s saddled with, Bayless would be well on her way to offering the evening’s most interesting and multi-layered performance.

Through Aug. 24. Kirk Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-279-4200; $36.25.