Theresa Rebeck’s latest play – Dig, in a Primary Stages production at 59E59 – is so steeped in botanical metaphors, it’s tempting to follow suit, so here goes: Despite some nifty plot twists and a pair of standout performances, the experience is a bit like being repeatedly bopped on the head by a giant amaryllis.
Roger (Jeffrey Bean, subtle and intense) runs a modest garden shop – named lower-case dig – in an unnamed city in Ohio. Prickly, a fussbudget set in his ways, Roger is not equipped to deal with the tornado that is Megan (mercurial Andrea Syglowski).
Fresh off a suicide attempt and subsequent hospitalization, Megan — black-leather-jacket-clad, slumped in a chair by the shop door like a sulky adolescent — has been dragged along on a social call by her stepfather, Lou (Triney Sandoval, solid in a role that proves largely superfluous). Initially mute, Megan is soon holding forth about Alcoholic Anonymous’s supposed rule requiring nonstop self-exposure: “They’re ruthless,” she says. ”But this is the deal … If you make the truth your friend it can’t just suddenly come at you and eat you alive.”
Initially, Megan is not exactly forthcoming about the circumstances that prompted her failed attempt. It’s not until a customer—a chirpy, over-sharing Catholic housewife (Mary Bacon, grossly underutilized) – happens to recognize her that the newsworthy prelude comes to light.
I’d best withhold the shocking reveal, dropped within the first 15 minutes – and in any case, Megan’s culpability is ultimately cast in question. Whatever the circumstances, she presents as badly damaged, perhaps past the point of recovery. The play opens with a heavy-handed metaphor: Lou has brought in a neglected elephant-ear plant. “I will save it,” Roger promises, annoyed. Will the reserved but skilled horticulturist prove something of a savior for Megan as well? Maybe, though she does her utmost to sabotage his grudging, avuncular concern.
Megan has a generational counterpart in Everett (Greg Keller), the shop’s delivery driver. Reprising the role from the play’s 2019 premiere at Vermont’s Dorset Theatre, Keller pulls off a creditable aging-stoner routine, but unfortunately he now reads rather old for the role – a tired trope of one at that. Together, Everett and Megan act like arrested adolescents, positing, for instance, that Roger must be “a virgin.” Are they somehow stuck in middle school? Other options – asexuality, voluntary abstinence – seem to be beyond them.
One more character – Adam, Megan’s smoothly menacing ex-husband (David Mason) – doesn’t surface until deep in Act 2. Their brief scene packs plenty of tension, along with a surprise twist which, in addition to coming out of nowhere, is never adequately addressed.
Prune some of the overgrowth (there, I succumb again), and the plot has plenty of potential, which Rebeck – as both author and director, a questionable hybrid – has failed to bring to fruition. Dig is worth seeing, though, for the tight complexity of Bean’s portrayal and for Syglowski’s willingness to go all in. Also, the humus-y aroma exuded by the plant-packed set (design by Christopher Swader and Justin Swader) smells divine and is surely salubrious.
