ANDREA PHOX
From left, Ezra Barnes, Anna Khaja, Christopher Daftsios and Sam Balzac co-star in “Nacho Ate Spiderman” at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
“Listen to us, talking about our pets as if they were our children,” says one character in Michelle Kholos Brooks’ “Nacho Ate Spiderman,” which is currently running, in its world premiere, at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
“Animals are better than children, don’t you think?” responds another.
To say that the two childless couples in this black comedy dote on their pets is a massive understatement. Devorah (Anna Khaja) and Xander (Ezra Barnes), and Brad (Christopher Daftsios) and Brad (Sam Balzac), don’t just adore them. Their lives seem to revolve around them. (And yes, that is not a typo: Both members of the male couple are named Brad.)
The one-act, 90-minute “Nacho Ate Spiderman,” directed by Sarah Norris, will make you laugh out loud at times, and gets in some sharp satirical digs at the vanities, pretensions, prejudices and silly lifestyle choices of the modern, well-educated, politically correct rich. It is a play that includes some very broad humor, and because of that, a dark twist that came near the end seemed a little jarring to me. But for the most part, Brooks makes her audacious premise work.
ANDREA PHOX
From left, Christopher Daftsios, Ezra Barnes and Sam Balzac in “Nacho Ate Spiderman.”
That premise (which is not the dark twist that I mentioned; I won’t write about that) is revealed right away, getting the action started with a jolt. It is January 2023, in Venice Beach, California, and one day Brad and Brad witness their pet dog, Nacho, killing Devorah and Xander’s pet rabbit, Spiderman. This takes place in the Brads’ yard, while Devorah and Xander are not present; the incident happens out of our view, too, though we soon see Spiderman’s lifeless body, represented by a stuffed animal.
The Brads consider surreptitiously dumping the body into Devorah and Xander’s yard, to protect themselves from any potential blame … or just confessing and hoping for the best … or trying to convince Devorah and Xander that a coyote was responsible for the killing … or burying the body and hoping Devorah and Xander will just think he ran away.
They decide on this last option. The truth is just too ugly to present to their neighbors. Brooks makes it clear that this is a deeply loved rabbit, just like Nacho is a cherished dog whom the Brads want to protect from any repercussions (like Devorah and Xander insisting she be put to sleep). The Brads tell themselves things like Nacho “doesn’t want to be bad” and “she feels bad” about what she has done.
After this, Brooks goes to farcical extremes as the Brads seek to keep Devorah and Xander from finding out their secret. Sometimes, the play reminded me of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”: With each scene, the polite exteriors fade away to a greater degree, and more ugly truths come out — with tensions rising both between the couples, and within the couples.
When things finally get physical (i.e., when there is an actual fight), Brooks and Norris cleverly show it in carefully choreographed slow-motion.
ANDREA PHOX
Anna Khaja in “Nacho Ate Spiderman.”
Making the chaos more enjoyable is the fact that these are not characters you would ever expect to fall apart in this way.
Devorah is a new age diva who prides herself on her ability to put together elegant cheese plates. But she’s got a seething anger underneath her serene exterior, and Xander, a semi-famous writer, spends a lot of time and energy trying to placate her.
Xander has an amusing way of saying potentially offensive things and then backtracking, like when he tells the Brads that a set of drinking glasses that Devorah loves “look like something that her mother might have won in a carnival on the Jersey Shore — not that there’s anything wrong with the Jersey Shore.”
The Brads — whose high-strung tendencies are pushed near hysteria by Nacho’s act of animal-on-animal violence, and its repercussions — are hard-working, successful real estate developers, though they are oblivious to the damage that one of their business decisions has caused.
The January 2023 time setting — there are a few references to the pandemic that the characters have just lived through — is significant. Despite these characters’ attempts to build safe, comfortable lives for themselves in their beautiful, expensive homes, the natural world has emphatically made its presence known, and they now have to deal with the consequences.
New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch will present “Nacho Ate Spiderman” through Oct. 25. Visit njrep.org.
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