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Our Bad Magnet
Scottish playwright Maxwell’s dark comedy follows three friends from a go-nowhere town on Scotland’s western coast over two decades. We see Fraser, Paul and Alan at ages nine, 19 and 29 (portrayed throughout by Behrendt, Manzer and Wilson, respectively), but as Maxwell darts back and forth through time, it’s revealed that the relationship among them is largely defined by their grudging attachment to a fourth: a morose young lad, ironically nicknamed Giggles (Smith), who possesses an uncanny gift for storytelling. Giggles appears only at age nine, and as Maxwell slowly parcels out details at Fraser, Alan and Paul’s reunion at age 29, it becomes clear that Giggles’s absence has become a driving force in each of their lives.
Maxwell has a strong ear for the wayward boredom of small-town adolescence, and Giggles’s parabolic fables (acted out by the other three boys) are affectingly charming. But the script’s winning elements never quite cohere into a whole. Magnet veers in many directions: Domestic abuse, adultery, mental illness and the relative merits of ’80s indie music are all lightly touched upon. Maxwell may be the current theater’s most authentic writer of capricious kid-speak, which is something, but Magnet still feels like a play in search of a thesis. The drama’s U.S. premiere is helped by Garcia’s note-perfect cast, playing out unruly lives marked by the jagged Scottish cliffside. While Behrendt in particular compels as the ringleader turned outsider, all four actors shine amid the gloom.
