Stone Tape Party

Fringe veteran Nu Sass Productions, a theater company with a mission statement of “female driven” theater, developed Stone Tape Party as their 2014 Capital Fringe entry, a play about a man suffering from the first world problem of having too many women fall in love with him — one of whom is a ghost. To be fair, Dusty (Jack Novak) the young protagonist of the play, would more likely describe his struggle as a valiant effort to leave a bad living situation and to carve out a new, better life for himself on the other side of the country. Unfortunately, his friends, multiple romantic interests, and (maybe-haunted) house don’t want to let him go.

The pitch reads like a horror movie, and it’s easy to imagine that an early draft of the script by Danny Rovin might have been framed that way. Dusty lives in a den of drugs and debauchery along with slacker roommates Basie (Ben Calman), Jodie (Jill Tighe) and Rich (Aubri O’Connor), the last of whom is a worn-down and aggressive drug dealer who ominously warns that anyone who stays in the house long enough will either wind up like her — or dead. That last point is proved by former roommate Aedan (Ariana Almajan), who died tragically a year before the play begins and has come back to haunt the house- — or maybe just Dusty, or maybe just a coffee can — during a party the housemates throw on the first birthday after her death.

In realization, the play isn’t a horror or a tragedy; it’s a comedy. Set designer Betsy Haibel has created a living room that looks less like a drug den or a haunted house, and more like a college dorm room that is host to a never-ending party. There’s some great humor on display, much of it centered on ghost-Aedan’s animated expressions and gesturing in response to the action on stage, which is invisible to most of the characters and directed, in comical exasperation, to Dusty and the audience.

Director Angela Pirko has created essentially a rollicking, fun, 90-minute party, which makes it all the more disturbing when some of the play’s darker themes bubble up. For the most part, these horrific elements are ignored or quickly glossed over by the characters and even the production in general. The only character with the gumption to attempt to leave the house, Dusty, does so more in grudging apathy than a race to save his own life.

The sole exception to this rule is found in Jill Tighe’s incredible turn as Jodie, the most fully realized character of the housemate bunch. Tighe deftly portrays the boisterous and brash personality of her character while the party is still rolling, but also puts in a tearful and heartbreaking performance when Jodie becomes the sole housemate to realize how dark her future in the house really is.

Stone Tape Party is like that one friend who shows up to a fairly innocuous party and gleefully asks who wants to join her for some seriously heavy drugs. Like that friend, the play might be oblivious to its own scary habits, but then, it only ever really promises to bring the party. On that front, it absolutely delivers.

Stone Tape Party is playing at Atlas Performing Arts Center at the Sprenger Theater. Remaining performances are:

Thursday, July 24th at 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 26 at 12:30 p.m.