PANOPLY

Big world; small minds

By JENNA SCHERER

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The most terrifying trend in recent fringe theater isn't some new brand of avant-garde frippery -- it's that new plays seem to be aspiring to the mainstream. That way lies death.

11:11's Panoply, now on stage at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre black box, is proof-positive that theater should stick to what theater does best: theater. Brian Tuttle's new play is a poor man's Babel (itself a poor man's Syriana). Beneath a thin veneer of cosmic-interconnectedness mumbo-jumbo, the story is little more than a cheap espionage thriller.

That's not to say Panoply isn't ambitious; but director/playwright/11:11 founder Tuttle seems to have gone a bit slap-happy with power. He employs 12 actors in his story of 20-somethings caught up in the big, scary world. Using short scenes and minimal character development, it's clear that Tuttle's drawing his inspiration from the mass media. He had better luck cribbing from David Auburn's stage play Proof in last spring's Where the Lost Boys Go than from NBC's Heroes for Panoply.

The show trots the globe in a black box; settings include Boston (natch), Tangiers, Paris and Southern Spain. We follow a rash of characters on their respective literal and psychological journeys, and what a rogue's gallery it is: Two backpacking college chicks (Kaytie Dowcett and Merissa Czyz); an American spy and his mysterious Syrian lover (Evan Quinlan and Katarina Abri); a weapons dealer and his secret girlfriend (Murray Wheeler and Sarah Farbo); a US immigrant deported to Morocco (Darshan Pandya); his captor Pierre (Danhai Jackson); a high-strung immigration agent (Jenn Pici); a Spaniard who forges visas (Josh Rilla) ... shall I go on?

With all these puzzle pieces to contend with, it's no shock that the characters end up as little more than crude archetypes. But Tuttle seems more concerned with tone and plot than anything else. The final act includes an extended montage to the funereal beat of Radiohead's "Videotape," and Quinlan's spy is made to utter embarrassing lines like, "Follow the yellow brick road, all the way down."

Tuttle would have done well to choose one or two of his scenarios rather than all ten kajillion. I would have liked much less trite father-daughter upheaval ("I'm really sorry that in all your planning for my success, you forgot to actually know me at all") and much more of the exchange between Jackson's empathetic terrorist and Pandya's terrified deportee.

Panoply's problem doesn't lie with the cast, who for the most part hold their own, but with the fact that Tuttle never seemed to have an editor. When your theater company mounts the play you wrote and directed, there's no one to tell you what you're doing wrong.

Ultimately, Panoply feels like a toddler strutting around the house in his daddy's pants, and not noticing that they've fallen down.

PANOPLY

THROUGH 12.8.07

BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS' THEATRE

949 COMM. AVE., BOSTON

866.811.4111

FRI 11/30, SAT 12/1, THURS 12/6, FRI 12/7 & SAT 12/8 8PM; SUN 12/2, 3PM

$15 ADULTS / 12$ STUDENTS

BU.EDU/BPT