"Boom!" is a bust.

"boom" -- Kate Poverman -- New Rep reviewer

After seeing New Rep's production of "boom!" my husband commented that the 90 minute play was 90 minutes too long. I disagreed: I thought it was about 80 minutes too long because there were some amusing parts. I know our negative view of the play was not universal. This was clear from the many laughs that the play garnered during the performance, some of which were my own, and none of which were my husband's.

I found the premise of the play interesting: the world is ending and a nerdy, maybe-gay guy, Jules, tricks a young journalism student, Jo, into coming into his bomb shelter so they can repopulate human kind. This drama is presented as a play-within-a-play: Jules and Jo's story is a museum display depicting how the (future?) human race evolved. However, the script was weak and inconsistent, ineffectively mixing humor and drama.

The most amusing and best-acted parts of "boom!" were provided by the museum docent/narrator/commentator Barbara, played by Karen MacDonald. I last saw Karen in a production of Miller's "All My Sons," in which she was transcendent. Unfortunately, this script didn't give her much to work with, but she did as good a job as anyone could have done. She was impressive on the drums (really) and was great as a ditzy docent who was a little too emotionally involved in the drama she was presenting.

Scott Sweatt, as the nerdy Jules, and Zofia Gozynska, as the unhappy Jo, were not equal to MacDonald. If they had been, the play might have succeeded. Gozynska's portrayal of Jo was especially problematic. Jo was an unhappy, bitter, foul mouthed young woman whose every other word began with "f" or "motherf." Having had periods in my life where I myself swore like a sailor, I was surprised at how much this irked me. The foul language was repetitive, unimaginative and gratuitous. There are better ways to show that a character has a violently negative view of the world. And to make matters worse, Gozynska couldn't pull this angry character off. She was frantic instead of furious, had no sense of timing, and lacked the physical and emotional dramatic strength that the character required.

Sweatt, as Jules, wasn't much better. He was bland, unimpressive and unconvincing. In short, he was as boring as his character. Sweatt improved a bit as the play progressed and the script allowed him to show some emotion. When this occurred, he was convincing as a man at the end of his rope. It's possible, though, that a stronger actor would have helped the play overcome its speciousness and lack of coherence. This not being the case, seeing "boom!" was pretty much a waste of 80 minutes.