Review: Human Things, Stranded on a Desert Island with Victoria Clark

The Covid pandemic gave millions a taste of what it would be like to be stranded on a desert island with their spouse. That’s roughly when Joshua Owen began writing Human Things, now making its world premiere at the West End Theatre.

It stars Owen’s actual wife, Rebeca Robles, as Margaret, an environmental researcher collecting data on a remote island in the Pacific. Her only companion is her husband, Greg (Ben Rosenfield), an engineer whose skill set should, in theory, come in handy in a place without stores or mechanics.

But Margaret enters pissed off. She spent the night on the beach and is very disappointed that Greg didn’t come find her. What if she was hurt? He protests that she took the ATV, so he had no method of transport; but it’s clear that he has failed a test, one of those little traps a wife sets for her husband in lieu of other prey.

They decide to have sex anyway, only to be rudely interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Bo (Michael Mulheren), an older man who has crashed his boat into a coral reef, leaving his wife Darce (Victoria Clark) with an injured leg. They need medical assistance.

The kooky septuagenarians quickly make themselves at home, demanding bourbon and towels, paying their hosts back with unsolicited criticism and little stories from their lives. And there’s a lot more where that came from, because a rapidly approaching category five typhoon means they are stuck together for the foreseeable future, shouting their exposition over gale force winds as the fragile shelter collapses around them. Darce unhelpfully offers, “Would you two like me to teach you a breathing exercise?”

Tightly wound Millennials (at least one of whom is a credentialed idiot) waiting on spoiled Boomers dishing hippie wisdom as the apocalypse draws near? It’s a heavy-handed allegory for contemporary America, with echoes of Thornton Wilder and William Golding.

The play would be worthy of a big eye roll if not for the second act, when Owen (but really Clark) manages to sustain life-or-death stakes for 30 minutes as Greg discovers a giant golden egg covered in spikes, which seems about to hatch. He considers it a miracle, but Margaret wants to destroy it, which, again, feels like a big fat metaphor for our wildly mixed response to AI.

While director Rory McGregor occasionally becomes mired in this script’s chaotic crosstalk, he makes good use of the odd dimensions of the West End Theatre, staging the play in traverse, with the audience on both sides of the stage. Scenic designer Jacob Bers invites us under the tent, which billows and shakes above as the storm intensifies (excellent work by lighting designer Reza Behjat and sound designer Ian Scot). Amanda Roberge convincingly costumes the characters according to type, dressing Margaret as a casual Lara Croft, Bo as a Jimmy Buffet diehard, and Darce as my actual mother.

The performances really sell the play. Mulheren’s easygoing presence in the face of certain death reveals either a soul approaching nirvana or a man who has never faced real adversity, depending on one’s perspective. Rosenfield’s affable dimness successfully masks the real danger Greg poses to his fellow islanders. We don’t see it at first because Robles is so much more aggressive as Margaret, easily summoning the rage of the Millennial meritocrat who sees her control slipping away.

When Darce reveals that Bo cheated on her with another woman, siring two children, Margaret wonders why exactly she stayed with him. “We’d already been together a long time at that point,” Darce responds, “Where else was I going to go?” (This whole exchange happens over cups of tea, as the typhoon lands.) Margaret laughs, a condescending gesture Darce throws right back in her face. It’s a moment that doesn’t appear in the script, but it says everything about the very different outlooks of these two women, and it sets Robles up perfectly for her act two journey.

Theatergoers who caught Clark’s Tony-winning performance in Kimberly Akimbo, or her excellent turn in last season’s Punch, will be unsurprised to learn that Clark is the best reason to see Human Things. Even in the most contrived situations, she never surrenders her honest and idiosyncratic humanity, facing down death with a wily gaze and incredulous lips. She makes the second act particularly thrilling, completing a character arc that is darkly funny and heartbreaking, holding the audience in the palm of her hand the entire time.

Human Things is an undeniably strange play that doesn’t always justify its own fabulism. But I am very much a proponent of making theater weird again, and this is definitely a weird one with a top-notch cast.