1812 Productions presents Michael Hollinger's world premiere 'Hope and Gravity'

Hope and Gravity consists of nine scenes, presented out of order, and nine characters, played by five actors. Hollinger conceived the play as a collection of connected short plays, but in production they’re one coherent piece, not nine.

By design

The scenes are connected — and scene changes obscured — by Jorge Cousineau’s scenic design, which includes computer-generated video projected onto the set’s central tan panels. Behind them, the crew quickly assembles nine different locations while we watch three-dimensional renderings of the locations scroll by. The renderings are numbered to help us follow their nonsequential playing order.

It’s an impressive visual, and we never feel like we’re waiting through scene changes. However, the tan of those large panels is repeated in each location’s walls, giving the scenes a bland, colorless look. The only exception, a projected outdoor backdrop in scene eight, “Spring Remembrance,” gets washed out by Shon Causer’s lighting.

Still, characters and story matter most, right? Hollinger’s nine people are fascinatingly ordinary, dealing with everyday problems like unhappy relationships and work pressures. Steve (Sean Close) and roommate Jill (Jessica Johnson) worry about their poetry class while waiting for an elevator. They’re joined by shifty dentist Peter (Gregory Isaac) and elevator repairman Marty (David Ingram).

Because of an elevator accident in another building, Marty is running a Randomized Floor Test. This takes the quartet to several nonsequential floors, mirroring Hollinger’s nonlinear structure. Both result in a fun taking-the-long-way journey.

More characters emerge, connected in clever ways. Johnson also plays Steve’s girlfriend Barb, and she’s hilarious and fascinating as each of her characters gossips disparagingly about the other. Suli Holum plays Nan, a nurse at the school where Barb works as receptionist. Hal (Isaac) is the principal and married to Tanya — also Holum. Peter (Isaac) is having an affair with Nan, and both Nan and Marty are Peter’s patients. Ingram also plays Douglas, Steve and Jill’s poetry professor.

Connect the dots

These connections, plus the nonlinear scene order, add intrigue. The play feels a bit mundane, perhaps because all the characters are nice, even if they make stupid, self-destructive decisions. Some scenes approach farce, especially scene seven, “Self-Help,” in which Barb, who has a phobia of dentists, hooks up with Peter, a pathological liar who is wired to endure a painful shock whenever he utters a falsehood.

Hope and Gravity is skillfully crafted to be fast and fun, but Hollinger works his magic to provide thoughtful themes along with the laughs. For example, Douglas the poet, after suffering an accident, begins writing poems — but they’re other people’s famous poems. Ingram reveals the excitement of new creation and the soul-crushing realization that he’s just plagiarizing from memory.

Douglas shares a lovely yet mysterious interlude with Tanya in the play’s final scene (which, chronologically, would be the third), “Leap of Faith.” They’re strangers meeting by chance, trapped alone together; we know their fate, but not how they get to that point. The scene provides more information but not everything, ending in a beautifully staged moment that brought tears to my eyes.

That’s Michael Hollinger at his best: witty banter, well-turned phrases, and genuine characters make us laugh; then something unexpectedly wonderful and mysterious lifts us to a new level. Gravity tugs us downward but hope allows us to soar, as Hope and Gravity shows.