Things are a little weird in the ’burbs of Delaware Valley on the eastern seaboard. There we find the Pinnolinis – Franky and his mom Barbara – living about as apart as people can be when they share a house.
Franky (Geoffrey Ulysses Geissinger) is a high schooler, seemingly unusually diffident, even reticent. Barbara (Jessica John) is a disturbed person who talks a lot and drinks more. It’s 1981 and dad is not to be seen. Maybe. Franky and his mom seem to communicate mostly by shouting between floors: Barbara is often upstairs. Franky seems to hang out in the kitchen.
This is a three-story place, with an apparently spooky downstairs that holds (among other things) the fridge and a freezer where mom stashes the milk (you read that right) and other things normally defrosted before consumed.
Franky’s classmate Johnny (Marcel Ferrin) comes over to ask for help with a book report so he can be done with it and get to the basketball game tonight. (He wears a Celtics t-shirt, so we assume he’s on the team.) His mom forgot to pick him up, and unfortunately Franky’s phone isn’t working. So Johnny’s stuck with these strange folks for a while.
Franky wants to type something, but can’t find the typewriter. That’s because mom has put it in a cupboard in the kitchen. Go figure.
Where’s Franky’s dad? He might be the hulking presence that shows up every now and then in the darkness. Or he might just be out of the picture entirely.
Franky seems to have had a brother named Danny, who it seems chose to live in the cellar under the staircase. What happened to him is not explained.
John seems to be having a wonderful time with her disturbed character, and she is always, to be sure, a joy to watch. She gets the smart-alecky comments that make the show occasionally fun to watch.
Geissinger and Ferrin play well off each other, even seem to need each other, the more intellectual Franky complementing the less brainy athlete. Both are excellent actors I’d be happy to see onstage again.
Yi-Chien Lee’s set works well, and the occasionally spooky sounds and lighting are well handled by Kate Rose Reynolds and Kevin Anthenill.
But the script itself needs work. The playwright calls it “magical,” but it doesn’t seem so to this viewer. It seems to become more and more abusive, both to Franky and the audience. And the final scene (I’ll spare you a description), is inexcusably grim and seemingly pointless, sending the audience home depressed.
The details
“The October Night of Johnny Zero” plays through Dec. 10, 2022 at Backyard Renaissance Theatre at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center, 930 Tenth Ave. in San Diego.
Plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m.
Tickets: (960) 975-7189 or online at backyardrenaissance.com
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