Review: When superstar and superfan collide: It’s ‘Future Thinking’ at South Coast Rep

In the opening scene of Eliza Clark’s “Future Thinking,” commissioned by South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa and now in its world premiere there, a middle-aged man sits alone in a hotel room, radiating gloom while wearing a black spandex bodysuit, gold arm bands, white socks with gladiator sandals and a vaguely Egyptian headpiece that sort of looks like donkey ears.

Peter (Arye Gross) could be posing for the figure of Folly in an allegorical Renaissance painting. But if the 50ish Peter is a fool, he’s one of our own era. A fan of the (fictional) sci-fi TV series “Odyssey,” he has come to Comic-Con as the character Gregor, with a message for the 23-year-old actress Chiara, who plays the show’s heroine.

Peter knows that Chiara has a restraining order against him. She filed it during last year’s Comic-Con, when he behaved disconcertingly even by the standards of cosplayers, but he can’t resist trying to make things right with her.

Now Peter has been whisked off the floor by an officious security guard in shorts, Jim (Enver Gjokaj). Jim’s not a bad guy; he just takes himself and his job a little too seriously, and he doesn’t have a strong sense of personal boundaries (as characters in plays tend not to). The security guard advises Peter to stalk an actress closer to his own age (such as Heather Locklear), to make up with his estranged wife and kids, and to use his pet-portrait business as a stepping stone to wildlife photography.

Peter isn’t interested in Jim’s life-coaching. He’s busy proclaiming his innocence and trying to explain his intentions toward Chiara. They are so tied into the murky symbolism of “Odyssey” that they prove incomprehensible to a non-fan.

The sleek set then spins us into another room in the hotel, where Chiara (Virginia Vale) has fled with her terse bodyguard (Jud Williford) and hardened stage mother (Heidi Dippold). These three make an unsympathetic group. Chiara is a poor little rich girl, spoiled and vapid, who complains about feeling trapped in her own life and begs for love from the people who see her as a commodity. She seems too lightweight to inspire devotion even in a stalker, but when she slips into her TV persona, a soldier in a gold breastplate and a micro-mini, she suddenly takes on a mythic grandeur.

The engine of the play is designed for one purpose: to get Peter and Chiara into the same room. (The other characters function as this engine’s cogs and wheels, although writer Clark fleshes them out with grim back stories.) So it’s a little frustrating when the plot idles instead of moving forward. Jim and Peter’s interaction, reliably funny at first, eventually starts to feel repetitive, as neither man reveals more about himself than is apparent from the start.

But the cast’s strong performances and Lila Neugebauer’s spirited direction add entertainment to the sluggish drive, which, toward the end, offers an unexpected and touching vista. Lighting designer Lap Chi Chu and sound designer Stowe Nelson conspire with set designer Dane Laffrey to create especially thrilling scene changes. But the real star of the behind-the-scenes team may be costume designer Melissa Trn, who has had a great deal of tongue-in-cheek fun dressing these characters as modern-day emblems of human folly.

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“Future Thinking,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 24. $22 and up. (714) 708-5555 or www.scr.org. Running time: 2 hours.

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