'Boy Gets Girl' Prods Playwright's View of Women

"Boy Gets Girl," the name of the Vienna Theatre Company's current production, sounds like a formula.

"Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back" is the cliché that is the basis for many stories. But with playwright Rebecca Gilman, we expect an inventive journey that will surprise and challenge us. Unfortunately, despite fine direction from Chuck Dluhy and sharply etched performances from most of the seven-member cast, the only surprise is how disappointing the story is.

"Boy Gets Girl" is about stalking, with the boy going far beyond socially acceptable and legal norms to "get" the girl. This six-year-old play unfolds like a mid-1970s TV movie rerunning on the Lifetime network. All that's missing are wide lapels and bell-bottoms.

Gilman stridently writes as if she is introducing feminism and objectification of women as new concepts. Having recently been entranced and intellectually challenged by Gilman's "Spinning Into Butter," in which she clinically slices into the mind-numbing effect of political correctness on a college campus, I was expecting new twists on familiar subjects. But Gilman retreats into stereotypes and an exposition-jammed plot that bores instead of provokes.

"Boy Gets Girl" opens comically with two New Yorkers meeting for a blind date. The tentative banter is amusing as Theresa (Andrea Spitz), a hard-shelled, unfulfilled writer, meets awkward, overeager Tony (Tom Witherspoon). She realizes he's not for her, but she is "socially conditioned" to accept a second date. She then tells him that they have no future, falling back on the old excuse, "It's not you, it's me." Within days, he is threatening her at work and home, exploding into full-fledged, full-time harassment, leaving his job and evading police. The thematic failure is that Tony does not really have much to teach the audience about current expectations of women, obsession or anything else. He's totally insane, and that's a different Lifetime movie.

Spitz deftly explores Theresa's distress as her life disintegrates. Theresa has to give up her telephone number and apartment and maybe sacrifice her name, job and city. But the character is hampered as Gilman focuses on Theresa's unattractive personality and tries to make the point that all men are taught to be predatory.

Theresa is unhappy with her life and obviously has trouble with relationships. She has no true friends, just many male co-workers, whom she treats with a measure of contempt. They are insensitive and male chauvinists to some degree, even as they genuinely try to help her. She eventually accepts her boss Howard, played with strength and sympathy by Al Fetske, as a father figure.

Co-worker Mercer, convincingly portrayed by Christopher Holbert, agonizes over Theresa's plight and tries to help, even as the playwright reveals that Mercer, too, harbors crude impulses toward her. Gilman further muddies things by having Theresa develop her most honest relationship with aging pornography filmmaker Les (Greg Christopher). Christopher turns in an amusing, quirky and ultimately poignant performance as the cheerful lecher.

And the women? Well, Theresa is emotionally sterile. Her secretary, Harriet, played by Caitlin Brodnick, is a bimbo. There is a female authority figure, Madeleine, a cop played by Leta Hall, but Gilman wrote her one-dimensionally, which raises the question of how Gilman truly sees women.

Dluhy keeps scenes moving rapidly, but excitement is stalled by the early removal of the stalker from the stage. Witherspoon avoids hinting at Tony's creepy hidden life in his portrayal in early scenes with Theresa, concentrating instead on the man's social awkwardness before Gilman decides the audience should mostly hear about, instead of experience, Tony's stalking. This robs the story of drama and suspense, ruining any chance for confrontation that might be viscerally satisfying and intellectually enlightening.

"Boy Gets Girl" continues through Nov. 4 at the Vienna Community Center, 120 Cherry St. Showtime is 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Oct. 29. This play contains strong language and adult situations. For tickets, visit the center, call 703-255-6360 or visithttp://www.viennatheatrecompany.org.