Skip to main contentOut in an Arizona desert night, a young astronomer wanders alone, sifting through the history of his two loves. The first is his first love, space, and all the stars contained within it. The second is his wife, Zoe, a woman of profound complexity. Though the astronomer, Kyle, knows both intimately, he lacks the ability to reach either. One is too far overhead, while the other, Zoe, is buried away in the earth.
Toni Press-Coffman's play Touch tries to pack much into its two-plus hours: the meaning of love and of loss, the struggle between the spiritual and the material, and the equal profundity found in the infinite and the fleeting. Though the playwright often succeeds, she has overextended herself, and the play occasionally teeters under the weight.
Kyle, we learn, has suffered a terrible tragedy, one that closes him off to those who love him. The play is his journey from bitter solitude toward a place where he can reach out beyond the shell of self.
The action takes place in the mind of Kyle (played by Andres Alcalá), though there are a few moments in the story's history that he could not have witnessed (the partnering of his best friend and Zoe's sister being one). It's true that learning later of events could aid in their reconstruction in his mind, yet it still appears that the playwright has not properly thought through her device.
Press-Coffman also affects an annoying stiltedness at times. Her characters, regardless of education and class, seem allergic to contractions, and too often sound interchangeable (ah, but then they would in Kyle's mind, I suppose). There's also Kyle's ardor for the work of John Keats. But other than for a few protestations of love ("Keats is mine!") and the odd bits of the poet's lines thrown in, the inclusion seems inorganic, becoming so much name-dropping. But these are all things that can be remedied. For the most part, Touch is quite touching.
Allen Nause's direction of the play is trim, and though he's stuck with a surprisingly trite sound design from the usually dependable Rodolfo Ortega, Mark Loring's simple set and Don Crossley's stellar lighting design are first-rate.
As Kyle, Alcalá brings the right measure of longing and fortitude to the role, so much so that the character's childlike giddiness and pleasure at the play's close is shared by an empathetic audience. Tim True's Benny couldn't be more true, while Kristen Martha Brown's Serena, as Zoe's sister, is mercifully free of the stomping and mannerisms on view in Proof.
Though the role of the whore-with-a-heart-of-gold Kathleen is a crippling cliché, Luisa Sermol pulls it off beautifully, quietly conjuring up for the viewer Oscar Wilde's famous line: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." "Now," Press-Coffman's piece begs us, "try and touch them."
WWeek 2015