The main appeal of "hey" lies in its familiarity. Some of the scenes are played out unconventionally, as when the characters act out a mock game show in which the men compete in their morning grooming for a chance to date a woman. But at the play's heart is a fairly ordinary story about two male friends and one woman caught in a love triangle. The twist is that in this love triangle, the men seem to be at least as interested in each other as they are in the woman. Even that situation won't sound new to anyone who has ever had an English class that discussed the "homosocial triangle" in which two men pursue the same woman as a way of dealing with their latent desire for each other.
Wright never develops the characters fully as individuals; they don't even have names. We know them best through their relationships with one another. But I never felt I didn't know the characters well enough because they already seemed so familiar to me. We've met them in movies and books and, most relevantly, in ourselves and in our friends. There's the shy young man (Jimmy McNally '07) whose insecurities are perhaps the most endearing thing about him; his slicker, more self-assured best friend (Dale du Preez '07); and the attractive woman (Jo Ellen Ally '07) who knows exactly how to play the dating game, even when she's not entirely sure why she's playing it. Who can't relate to McNally's character as he awkwardly stammers his way through a date, or to Ally's as she quietly but gleefully falls for the "wrong" person?
McNally and du Preez both turn in solid performances. McNally lends sweet humor to an otherwise very serious character. It is a testimony to both du Preez's acting and Wright's writing that du Preez's character comes across as likeable despite his role as the smooth talker whose love life, as his best friend describes it, "is a lesson in multitasking." The two work well as a pair of best friends and share a warm rapport. But ultimately, they don't have enough sexual chemistry with each other to pull off the climax of the play.
Ally's fast-talking style makes her character seem more neurotic than she needs to be. Nevertheless, she manages to draw laughs and win our affection. In a monologue, she talks to the audience as if we were one of her best friends. It's hard not to like her after that.
Wright's dialogue is honest and funny, if not particularly memorable. The colloquial, realistic style works for the play-the characters talk like we talk. We focus on what they're saying, not how they're saying it. Perhaps the most comic scene has the men vying for the woman's attention using cheesy pick-up lines such as "Is that a mirror in your pocket? 'Cause I can see myself in your pants." Even if most of us have never actually used these lines, we've all heard them, either jokingly or in earnest.
For the most part, the play strides at a quick but unhurried pace; "hey" in its entirety consists of seven scenes and clocks in at just over an hour long. It loses some of its momentum toward the end; the penultimate scene is the slowest and weakest in the play. All three characters are onstage and arguing, but it's not immediately clear exactly what is going on-are they all in the room at the same time? Are two or three different scenes unfolding simultaneously? I found myself growing impatient for the next scene, which I was sure would explain what had just happened in this scene. (It did, and so as to aid the reader, the scene is actually two parallel scenes being played concurrently.)
Humor and emotion feed off of each other throughout the play and rarely cancel out each other. We smirk at one character's comments even as we empathize with another's emotional confusion. What seems paradoxical turns out to work, highlighting both the sincere feeling and subtle absurdity of the dating scene.
In the end, "hey" is neither ground-breaking nor life-changing. You won't walkaway from it marveling at the wonders of theater. What it is is a humorous and entertaining but dead-on look at ordinary relationships. Wright offers laughs and sympathy to anyone who can finish the sentence "It's not you. ..."
I watched a preview, but "hey" runs officially Feb. 17-19 at 8 p.m. in Studio 3, Webster Hall. Tickets are free and can be reserved at 542-2277.