Whistler in the Dark‘s In On It is a sparkly little fringe gem if your tastes (or wallets) don’t lean towards the current holiday shows of the larger Boston companies. Actually, it’s worthwhile either way. Tidily produced in the intimate Factory Theatre, Daniel MacIvor‘s two-man-show, starring Joe Lanza and Scott Sweatt and directed by Meg Taintor who can always make a tough text soar, sets a play-in-progress within a play about two men in a troubled relationship, that could just as well be anyone’s.
In bits and pieces we see This One (Lanza) and That One (Sweatt) come together and fall apart and come together again to the tunes of Maria Callas and Lesley Gore, all while they debug a play that mirrors their own troubles. It’s cleverly self-referential and elegantly cyclical, as it pulls John Barth’s Möbius strip out the postmodern desert and applies it to a deeply human story. Lanza and Sweatt each play several characters as they read scenes of the interior play, offering us stories both vastly opposed and intimately adjacent to their own, as well as insight into the creative process that is here projected onto their relationship. What begins as a series of fragmented episodes, becomes the witty and endearing story of a troubled couple, told through their voices and those of others.
Scott Sweatt as That One and Joe Lanza as This One
Whistler in the Dark’s In On It at The Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont, through Dec. 6th. Tickets: $20, $10 students.
