Asian American Repertory Theatre (AART), the La Jolla Playhouse company in residence this season, debuted its work at the Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre last weekend. Amy Cho’s “BFE” continues through Sept. 19, allowing AART the space it lacks, at least for the duration of the residency. The plot concerns Isabel (Elise Kim Prosser), a middle-age woman with agoraphobia, who spends the day watching TV in her satin nightgown. She lives with her brother, Lefty (Albert Park), who supports Isabel and her 14-year-old illegitimate daughter, Panny (Carolyn Henderson). Albert brings Panny a birthday cake and unwrapped earrings. Isabel has forgotten Panny’s age, and Albert has given her pierced earrings for her unpierced ears. Panny is reclusive and depressed, worried as everyone else about a serial killer preying on young women at her “Podunk school in the middle of a nowhere town.” Her only social outlets are her blond girlfriend, Nancy (Jeanneal Gunning), and her Korean penpal, Hae-Yoon (Trinity Tuyen Tran), whom we see on video. Also on video are constant shots of the action as well as Isabel’s fantasies of Douglas McArthur (Michael Tutino), whom she believes was the lover who impregnated her. When he’s not working as a security guard at a major department store, Lefty creates avatar miniatures and paints them with brushes that have as few as two hairs. This impresses Evvie, a lovely African-American clerk (Lynae DePriest) with whom he falls in love. Meanwhile, Panny wrong-dials a 20-year-old named Hugo (John Alspough) and a phone friendship springs up. In a scene that could have come right out of Tennessee Williams, Isabel seduces a pizza guy while Panny meets Hugo for the first time and Lefty trysts with Evvie. Tony Perez completes the company. Written in brief, cinematic scenes, Cho’s play obliquely addresses issues of abandonment and neglect, teenage angst, mental illness and the cultural challenges faced by first- and second-generation Asian immigrants. That’s a lot of baggage for a two-hour play cast with community actors of varying experience. Some do excellent, affecting work, and AART rises to the short-scene challenge with an interesting but noisy design concept by C. L. Ward and media design by Samuel Dent and Albert Park, who in real life is a videographer. My major complaint, as always with this space, is lack of clear diction. When actors face to the side in the Shank, consonants are lost. More experienced actors would cheat front and a more experienced director would stage scenes that allow this to happen. AART is the third local theater company to participate in La Jolla Playhouse’s Resident Theatre Program, which gives a residency to gypsy theaters. The first two resident theaters were MOXIE Theatre and Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company. “BFE,” which cannot be translated in a family newspaper, continues at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 19. For tickets ($15-$25) e-mail [email protected] or phone (619) 940-5891. Find the Shank Theatre at La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive.
