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player ready...Matt Rieger’s new play for Curious Theatre Branch is a — wait for it — curious contraption that doesn’t really make it all the way through its own beguiling conceptual thickets. The premise — God (Beau O’Reilly) plays a variety of board games with new arrivals to the hereafter that determine which door they go through — feels like a funhouse version of the Grim Reaper chess scene in Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal.” (Rick Paul’s charming set, with its Lucite furniture and blue-and-silver palette, looks like a mini-clubhouse designed by Austin Powers.)
A trio of assistants — a secretary (chirpy KellyAnn Corcoran), a cowboy (Ryan Hogan Wright) and a nervous guitar-toting troubadour (T-Roy Martin, who performs whimsical and semi-mournful ballads — including an ode to “indifference”) kibbitz and coax from the sidelines as the games unfurl. But being master of the universe takes its toll, and the Big Guy has to spend some time on the analyst’s couch where his shrink (Kelly Anchors) tries to suggest coping strategies — like maybe letting someone else win once in a while. Meantime, two choral figures, an angel (Zoe Pike) and a devil (Sidonie Greenberg), offer up tantalizing but seemingly unconnected bits of arcana about game creator Milton Bradley and ancient Egyptians’ ideas about gods and games.
But we don’t really learn enough about why the creator is surrounded by this particular crew. Why them, instead of some other combo of personalities? And is the shrink the real power behind the cosmic throne? Is she just our own projection about fate and free will? Rieger sets up lots of interesting questions, but the chutes and ladders of the narrative too often lead to dead ends.
The best elements in the script and Stefan Brun’s staging come from the performances of Justin Botz and Julia Williams as all of God’s gaming opponents. The latter in particular resonates as a young kid who shows God that an anarchic approach to life — at least as embodied in “Candyland” — can sometimes be the way to go.
Review: ‘Playing God’ by Curious Theatre Branch
2 STARS
Through Dec. 20, Prop Thtr, 3502 N. Elston Ave.; $15 or pay what you can at the door, $12 advance at curioustheatrebranch.com.