For theater to stay vibrant, it often has to risk alienating complacent audiences, and that's the case with A.W.O.L. Playwright Olivier Cadiot's humorous, moving, but often arch portrait of homelessness and alienation makes the audience work to uncover the author's insights.

Part of the six-month-long Act French festival, this Americanized version of Cadiot's play centers on a New York City beggar who fancifully re-creates the world around him. In his imaginary adventures, he fantasizes about a tryst (which he illustrates in explicit detail) with a freckled redhead who occasionally walks past him, navigates a food service crisis that takes on military proportions, and re-lives false memorie[...]