There’s something romantic about encountering fellow passengers on a train, especially of the long-haul variety. You don’t have much interaction with other airplane passengers because of the limited space. And you don’t have much to do with fellow subway riders because, well, you want to avoid getting stabbed or shot. But a long train ride seems to hold infinite possibilities, whether of the murderous variety, as in Strangers on a Train or Murder on the Orient Express, or romantic possibility, such as Before Sunrise.
More often than not, however, there are no possibilities at all. We might engage in some quick small talk, or just sit and look at our fellow passengers and wonder who they are and what their lives are like. That’s the conceit of Keith Bunin’s affecting new drama now playing Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi Newhouse after premiering in 2019 at San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse. Nothing of any real consequence happens in The Coast Starlight, except that we get to know and thoroughly enjoy the company of its characters — who never get to know each other except in their imaginations.
The Coast Starlight (even the name is romantic, as if its riders were embarking on a heavenly journey) is the name of a real train that runs from Los Angeles to Seattle. It provides the setting for Bunin’s play, in which we’re introduced to six characters in the order in which they board. The first are T. J. (Will Harrison), a young Navy medic about to be deployed back to Afghanistan, and Jane (Camila Canó-Flaviá), a movie animator who passes the time sketching drawings of her fellow passengers, including T.J., for whom she feels an attraction.
In short order comes Noah (Rhys Coiro), a macho bartender traveling to see his elderly mother beginning to suffer from dementia; Liz (Mia Barron), agitated over just having broken up with her boyfriend after participating with him in an “Extraordinary Couples Workshop” at the Esalen Institute; Ed (Jon Norman Schneider), a burnt-out tech industry businessman traveling via train because he’s lost his driver’s license due to a DUI; and Anna (Michelle Wilson), returning home after having to identify the body of her estranged, heroin-addicted brother, whom she hadn’t seen in ten years.
We learn this intimate information via monologues delivered by all of the characters and conversations that take place among them. Except, as we soon figure out, their interactions are all in their heads, as they imagine each other’s situations and what they might have said to each other if they had the nerve.
It could all come across as very precious, the playful machinations of an omniscient playwright putting his characters through arbitrary paces. But it somehow works, thanks to the empathetic characterizations and resonant dialogue that makes all of the figures appealing.
And also very funny at times, especially the hyper-energetic Liz, who bursts into the car delivering a loud, one-sided phone conversation to a friend describing her recent break-up in angry, profane detail. As show-stopping monologues go, it rivals Teach’s barnstorming entrance in David Mamet’s American Buffalo, and Barron makes the most of it, delivering a tour-de force rendition in which she chews the scenery with hilarious gusto and yet stays thoroughly grounded in emotional reality.
The play’s central drama revolves around the quiet, well-mannered T.J., who has gone AWOL from the Navy and is traveling via stolen identification. Even as he’s in fear of being found out, he wrestles with the dilemma of whether or not he should follow through on his dangerous plan which would require him to live on the run. Noah, a veteran himself, tries hard to talk him out of it, reminding him of his duty to the people he served with and the damage his rash decision could inflict on the rest of his life.
Director Tyne Rafaeli’s simple yet elegant staging beautifully serves the play’s imaginary construct. Arnulfo Maldonado’s set design consists of nothing more than train seats on a raised platform that revolves depending on the action with abstract images projected in the background, while Daniel Kluger’s sound effects and original music contribute to the ethereal mood. The six-person ensemble go through their emotional and physical paces (you sometimes worry that one or more of them will fall off the fast-moving platform) beautifully, delivering nuanced performances that make us truly involved in their characters’ fates.
The Coast Starlight is the sort of play that will stick in your mind long afterward. Especially the next time you find yourself in a confined space with a bunch of strangers about whom you’ll probably wind up concocting some imaginary scenarios of your own.
The Coast Starlight opened March 13, 2023, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and runs through April 16. Tickets and information: lct.org
