In "The Aliens," a burnt-out hippie and a self-proclaimed representation of "trailer trash" both clash with a 17-year-old summer employee in what becomes a pleasantly surprising, meaningful interaction.
Directed by Shawn LaCount, Company One's production of Annie Baker's "The Aliens" is a myopic view of three outsiders who find something in common for a beautiful, if brief, period of time.
"The Aliens" is a part of the "Shirley, VT Plays" Festival at the Boston Center for the Arts, along with "Circle Mirror Transformation" and "Body Awareness." The festival is a celebration of Annie Baker's plays which are all based on the same small, fictional town in Windsor County, Vt.
In the production, a couple of aimless 30-year-olds make the backside of a small town Vermont coffee shop their unauthorized, exclusive hangout until a new teenage employee stumbles upon them.
Evan (Jacob Brandt) is an anxious soon-to-be high school senior who lacks the nerve to successfully shake off the constantly high KJ (Alex Pollock) and his low-spirited friend Jasper (Nael Nacer). Yet Evan's efforts to rid the coffee shop of its two most dedicated loiterers quickly peter out, as he all too quickly becomes enamored with the lifestyle and personalities of the two dropouts. It is the beginning of an unlikely and charming friendship between three different but equally lonely characters.
KJ immediately wins the audience over with his nymph-like mannerisms and clear pleasure in something as simple as a sunny day or a cup of (psychedelic) tea. His thoughts, conversations and sudden bursts of songs are whimsical and entertaining despite their nonlinearity or pertinence to the moment.
Pollack masterfully creates an interesting character that is superficially content but internally instable. The audience's realization of the importance of what lies beneath the surface becomes an integral part of both KJ and the play itself.
In contrast to KJ, who wins over the audience in the opening scene, his friend Jasper at first appears the less likeable of the two. His bitter and hostile reactions to news of past girlfriends' current affairs send him into an internal spiral of despair, agony and what is only later revealed as creative genius.
Nacer beautifully portrays Jasper's transformation as he reads pages of Jasper's novel during a private celebration of the Fourth of July. Jasper wrote the excerpt during one of the lowest moments in his life; by displaying immense and overwhelming feelings of grief and loneliness, Nacer produces a reflection of America that is desolate, honest and beautiful.
"The Aliens" is a fascinating look at a place that is so often forgotten because nothing really happens there. It is an environment prone to stasis, exhibited when KJ learns from Evan that the same teachers that taught him a decade ago are still teaching at the local high school. The realization of shared acquaintances is rampant in a small town, and the setting for "The Aliens" is no exception.
The audience members, like the play's characters, are often reminded of the world outside the small one they share in the back lot of the coffee shop. It is the world from which they are all excluded that deserts them.
The extreme and emphatic pauses throughout the show create a soothing, comical and sometimes frustrating sense of calm.
The frustration emerges when the silence crosses the fine line between calm and uncomfortable for the audience. Nothing in the performance is rushed, and it is only in the moments of extreme stress and torment that the characters lose it and create a sudden and startlingly violent outburst.
The pauses hint at the already obvious poetic allusions. The shared reverence of Charles Bukowski, the desire to travel across America and the problems with drugs, smoking and alcohol all hint at the desire for a beatnik lifestyle. Yet these beat correlations don't seem trite or clich — in this play, they ring true.
What at first seems like an implausible relationship between the two lost older men and the nervous teenage employee reveals itself as an extremely deep and meaningful connection.
The disparities in age, background and direction are only distractions for what the characters all have in common; namely, the role of the outcast. It is as a consequence of their isolation that they reach out to one another, and, as a group, watch the fireworks explode in the clear Vermont sky.
