Wet Dream

This work, a Jamming Talent production presented by Theatre for a New City, is a string of loosely assembled performers inspired by Cirque du Soleil and populated by performers that include members of Barnyard Burlesque with a soundtrack largely of electronic melodies by Henry McHenry. There is modest connective tissue to Wet Dream, but not much of a story: A young woman, Veronica (Ashley Michalos), stumbles into her bedroom late at night, swilling wine from a bottle. She listens to an answering machine message from an angry lover who's given up on her after one more act of unfaithful behavior, sings a bluesy song and falls asleep. The rest of the performance (about 40 minutes) is the surreal stuff of her dreams.

Some of it is disturbing, some amusing and some simply incomprehensible. There’s an emphasis on bizarre costumes and intriguing props. Several individual components — two acts of aerial dancing, a routine involving two flaming balls on chains about a yard long that are spun and swung with increasing speed and a woman dancing with a glowing hula hoop — are rendered with considerable skill.

Other scenes seem are oddly sinister and vaguely sexual: Someone creeps into bed with Veronica and might be having sex (or at least some kind of sensual encounter), but as they wrestle under a sheet the effect is as comic as it is erotic. A surgeon (Sweet Hayseed) and a nurse (Jenn-O-Side) appear for a climactic ballet involving a gigantic hypodermic syringe and a capsule the size of duffel bag. Are we meant to frightened or amused?

Chris Wesselman (who played chunky Dave Bukatinsky in New Stage Collective’s The Full Monty last summer) appears as a clown in a cloud of balloons that he gradually pops until he’s wearing little more than a Speedo. The soundtrack for his routine is Louis Prima’s “Just a Gigolo” pairing with “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” and it’s funny. But it’s too long.

That’s a problem with much of the material in Wet Dream: Too many elements simply go on without much reason. The content of various elements might be clever, but they lack the substance or variety that will sustain interest.

Wet Dream’s biggest deficit, however, is sloppiness. Sound quality is wildly uneven: Michalos’ song in the opening scene is hard to hear over the recorded soundtrack; in the next scene, a live rendition of the Eurythmics is so loud it’s distorted. Scene changes and video imagery are choppy.

The entire performance appears under-rehearsed. When Michalos awoke from Veronica’s dream for the curtain call, she stood onstage awkwardly then had to gesture to others in the cast to take their bows. Several performances seem dangerously conceived: Sweet Hayseed took an unplanned fall because she was unsteady on her glowing platform heels.

Even skillfully performed elements took longer than necessary. The swift transitions of dreams are what’s needed, not the tedious repetition of gymnastic movement.

Perhaps part of the problem is the lack of a director (none is indicated in the program). Andrew J. Bernhard is credited as the executive producer, but it appears that his role was to assemble acts, not to give this piece the dramatic coherence that might make it more watchable.

If you’re seeking some occasionally entertaining acts in the vein of Cirque du Soleil, you might give this a try. If you want engaging theater, look elsewhere. Grade: C 

— Rick Pender