A soul alive online, lost in the real world

The clever, imaginative and incisive Obie Award-honored play "The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow" centers on a singular protagonist: a Southern California 22-year-old with amazing gifts and some serious hang-ups.

The latter include a bad streak of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and a case of agoraphobia acute enough to make this "exceptional child" an adult prisoner in her parents' home.

In Rolin Jones' much-touted play, mechanical prodigy Jennifer Marcus has the brainpower to iron out high-tech problems for the military. She can build a jet-propelled robot in her bedroom, from mail-order parts. And without stepping outdoors, she can find and confront the birth mother in China who gave her up for American adoption in infancy.

But what if your online life is an exciting high-wireless act of technical derring-do and virtual sex bartering, and your off-line existence is a failure?

The clash between those two modes of being makes "Jenny Chow" something wiser and more poignant than a sci-fi cartoon comedy for the stage. Seattle Public Theater's local premiere of the script does not do it full justice. But the company merits applause for introducing us to Jones' original and refreshing talent.

The Cyber Revolution poses an obvious challenge for modern dramatists like Jones. How to portray people who are planted in front of computer screens much of the time? How to dramatize conversations, work and romances conducted online — without rigging up theaters with Wi-Fi and giving every patron a laptop?

The beauty of "Jenny Chow" is that Jones uses the timeless virtues of imaginative storytelling and witty dialogue to boot up and reconsider the brave new world of Cyber-experience.

Jennifer (excellent Kimber Lee) speaks aloud the furious barrage of messages she types to a bounty hunter, a mad Russian scientist, a sex-crazed Mormon genealogist and other co-conspirators (all played by the very funny Patrick Scott).

With her snorting laugh and geeky passion, Lee quickly sucks us into Jennifer's bizarre corner of cyberspace and crazy-brilliant schemes.

But when she's not in the thick of Internet adventure, Jennifer's in-the-flesh interactions are strained and limited. No wonder her folks are worried about their genius shut-in daughter, whose alternative existence is unknown to them.

The scenes between Jennifer and her sweet stay-at-home dad (David Gassner) and breadwinner mother (Karen Nelsen) are the weakest in director Carol Roscoe's visually minimalist staging for Seattle Public Theater.

The writing isn't as sharp there, true. But Nelsen locks into a shrill, one-note reading of a stressed-out parent who rides her "loser" daughter mercilessly. She, and to a lesser degree Gassner, don't summon the mixed emotions to create a more dimensional and revealing family dynamic.

On the mark, though, are Jennifer's awkward contacts with her only "live" friend, Todd (appealing Trick Danneker), an affectionately drawn Valley Boy, and her telling relationship with Jenny Chow. Played with aptly eerie calm by Kelly Mak, Jenny Chow is the android alter-ego Jennifer creates. And, in a touching replay of her own early life, she's the child who is cast away.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com