In Deep Blue Sound, playwright Abe Koogler has devised something of a modern-day, West Coast variation on Thornton Wilder’s 1938 Our Town. The local denizens sit around on an all-but-bare stage, talking directly to each other and to the audience. Like Our Town, Deep Blue Sound—which takes place on an isolated island off the coast of Seattle—is all about direct communication and non-distracted interaction. Only it turns out that while the characters swiftly react to each other, most of the time they actually don’t seem to listen to—or care about—what anyone else is saying.
The playwright envelops his tale in local concern about the absence of the pod of orca whales that have appeared offshore, in late fall, since the Puget Sound island was settled in the 1800s. Are the whales missing, dead, extinct? The locals discuss the issue repeatedly, an unexplainable and unresolvable dilemma that removes them from their own personal unresolvable dilemmas. Momentarily, that is, until the characters stop listening to each other and start squabbling. Can people communicate without communication?
The Our Town device—of characters telling their fragmented tales while grouped together, with only rare use of traditional “scenes” with conversational dialogue—works especially well. Many of the discussions never quite finish, as we are wafted away into the next subject. This accentuates the notion that each character on this desolate island is alone on their own island, if you will.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★★ review here.]
Nine actors play Koogler’s nine distinct characters, many of them doubling as townsfolk in passing. While the case of the missing whales is the announced subject of the play, the major plot strand tells of Ella, who is battling with cancer and preparing for assisted suicide (as per Washington State’s 2008 Death with Dignity act). Also prominent among the group are Ella’s daughter, Ali, an artist returned from New York for her mother’s final weeks, who has her own personal struggles; and Ella’s estranged friends John and Mary, who each have their own personal struggles. Sharing (or trying to seize) the spotlight is the annoying so-called Mayor Annie, who doubles as the mother of a heard-but-unseen character called Alexander the Dancing Boy. Other denizens include a newspaper editor who knows a thing or two about cults, a horse groomer, a therapist, and a drifter who walks around with a chainsaw. There is even a bit appearance by the local pharmacist, just like in Wilder’s fictional town of Grover’s Corners.
To the credit of the author—and to director Arin Arbus and the entire cast—each of these characters come across as warmly human, flaws and all. Is Ella the primary character of the play? Or is it just that the always-astonishing Maryann Plunkett is playing the role, and when Maryann Plunkett speaks—or even sits alone in the light, clearly thinking but unable to express the words—you can’t help but be riveted. Plunkett’s gripping performance is to be expected, at least by anyone who has seen her on stage over the last 15 years. But there are several other equally strong performances on view. Miriam Silverman, who won a Tony for her marvelous featured performance in The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, again offers major support as Ella’s friend Mary. That well-known eccentric character man Arnie Burton (of Peter and the Starcatcher and The 39 Steps) plays it endearingly straight here, as John, so much so that you might hardly recognize him. They are matched by fine work from less-familiar players including Carmen Zilles (Epiphany) as Ali, Crystal Finn (Birthday Candles) as Mayor Annie, and Mia Katigbak—who gave one of the more effective performances in the recent Steve Carrell Uncle Vanya—as Joy, the newspaper editor.
But it’s Koogler, author of Staff Meal and Kill Floor, who works the magic. Deep Blue Sound was originally produced by Clubbed Thumb in June 2023, in a one-week run as part of Summerworks at the Wild Project. The production has now been remounted by Clubbed Thumb for a five-week stint at the Public, with director Arbus and her design team intact; and with Plunkett repeating her Obie Award–winning performance.
While this spring season has brought forth some exceptional new plays—Samuel D. Hunter’s Grangeville and Bess Wohl’s Liberation thus far, with additional exciting prospects in the next month—Abe Koogler’s Deep Blue Sound is not to be overlooked.
Deep Blue Sound opened March 6, 2025, at the Public Theater and runs through April 5. Tickets and information: clubbedthumb.org
