If they don't kill each other first: A liberal and an oil exec are forced together in 'Ashes to Ashes'

Review: If they don’t kill each other first: A liberal and an oil exec are forced together in ‘Ashes to Ashes’

By F. Kathleen Foley

Dec. 27, 2017 6 AM PT

In “Ashes to Ashes,” a visiting production at the Odyssey Theatre, Sara is a liberal prone to chaining herself to pipes at mass protests. Jefferson is an oil executive whose land grabs are the chief target of Sara’s outrage.

But when we first meet the two they are jetting off, together, to fulfill the provisions of their married friends’ will, which has dictated that the deceased couple’s ashes be scattered at various locales throughout Europe.

That’s fertile ground for a farce, but playwright Debbie Bolksy’s comical set-ups are so vague, the audience must laboriously dig for information that should have been provided up front. The play, presented here by the Athena Cats, was developed in Theatricum Botanicum’s Seedlings’ workshop but never fully germinates. It proves to be a confused clutter of repetitive scenes wrapped around a promising premise.

To begin with, the nature of the relationship between Sara (Lena Bouton) and Jefferson (Kevin Young) is revealed too slowly. Then, Sara’s frequent shredding of papers seems a horribly distracting bit of blocking until we belatedly learn it’s a nervous habit.

Did we mention that Sara and Jefferson split close to a billion if they fulfill the will’s provisions to a T, and if they separate from one another they forfeit the cash? Yet the two are forever storming off in huffs, with little apparent downside. And let’s not even mention a strange visit to Portmeirion, Wales, where we’re swept into a chess match from an episode of the 1960s series “The Prisoner” — an anachronistic interlude that puts us in doubt of exactly how old these characters are supposed to be or in what time frame the play is actually set.

Bolksy short-hands her own conceit throughout. Considering that the deceased couple was young and died while skydiving, how the two managed such sadistically specific testamentary provisos, necessitating height-phobic Jefferson to bungee jump and water-phobic Sara to nearly drown in a raging river, stretches credulity. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Very much to their credit, director Katherine James and a comically able cast, including protean Michael Uribes in a multitude of roles, manage a briskly paced staging. The technical elements, especially Cricket S. Meyers’ sound and Kate Bergh’s whimsical costumes, are first-rate. It’s a handsome production, and cast and crew labor mightily, but their best efforts do not bring Bolsky’s text to fruition.

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