"The Theory of Everything": Vegas, aliens and identity crises

Theater Review |

"Everything" is too much! Especially when it's stuffed into an hour and 45 minutes. "The Theory of Everything," an award-winning play by Thai-American playwright Prince Gomolvilas, has an overly ambitious agenda, and this SiS Production, directed by Manuel R. Cawaling, hasn't quite tamed it.

Issues of life, death, frigidity, infertility, homosexuality, faith, hope, chance, failure, love, and intergenerational strife are all part of the mix, and they're just subordinates to the main topics — identity and the ethnic experience in America.

The story takes place on the roof of a wedding chapel in Las Vegas, where a group of Asian Americans meet regularly to search for alien spacecraft. Here, with binoculars in hand for scanning the skies, they actually gaze into their souls, revealing their insecurities, their own sense of alienation and the secrets they have harbored for many years.

Among the cast, Stan Asis — as Hiro, the Japanese co-owner of the wedding chapel — is good. At various points he's "Hamlet's" wearisome Polonius, spouting platitudes; a dream-obsessed Walter Mitty; and a heartsick husband finally facing the truth about his marriage. Also noteworthy is Kathy Hsieh as Patty, Hiro's Thai wife, who desperately wants to believe that anything is possible, and who must face the shattering realization that life doesn't quite work that way.

Jose Abaoag as Gilbert creates an affecting Filipino youth, frantically searching for his true identity. Abaoag moves back and forth between cockiness and naked emotional vulnerability, and in the process reveals much about minority/majority mindsets in our country.

The voiceless phantom, clothed in white and wandering the periphery of the stage to create various lighting effects, is an elegant creature whose long hair and posture makes one think of an Utamoro woodblock print. But it's hard to tell what she's doing there.

What we have here are lots of ideas, good background sound, a sprinkling of humor and some fine acting. Sadly it's just not enough.

Nancy Worssam: nworssam@earthlink.net