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Lonely Planet by Steven Dietz

review in the Oakland Tribune by Chad Jones (July 16, 2001)

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Chairs, emotions pile up in moving drama `Lonely Planet'

Three 1/2 Stars - Poignant, affecting By Chad Jones,

Like Thornton Wilder's ``Our Town," Steven Dietz's ``Lonely Planet" examines
human suffering and fear, then tempers it with affection and connection, leaving us
with hope-tinged melancholy. Dietz's play is modest - only two actors and a
quickly spun two hours - yet it encompasses tidal loneliness, terror, futility and
friendship. That's a lot of big stuff to cram into a small play, but in the right hands,
the challenge is surmountable. Over the weekend, San Francisco's Unconditional
Theatre opened ``Lonely Planet" under the direction of John Warren, a skilled
director whose first smart move was choosing to produce Dietz's play. His
second smart move was casting Michael Patrick Gaffney as Jody, who has
somehow lost the courage to leave the map store he owns, and Ian McConnel as
Carl, Jody's nutty best friend with a penchant for lying. These two capable actors
bring exactly the kind of realism and warmth needed to keep Dietz's play from
teetering into sentimentality. There's a risk whenever you're dealing with the
barest emotions of love, affection and friendship that the sentiment will
overwhelm the realism and manipulate audience members instead of inform them.
But if we believe in the actors and believe in the world they create, we invest and
participate in their emotions rather than just admire or pity them. It also helps that
Dietz only allows his characters one hug and infuses the proceedings with a wry
sense of humor. Gaffney and McConnel play off of each other expertly, keeping
to the natural, conversational rhythms of people who spend a lot of time with
each other. Jody and Carl rely on one another for routine, and their friendship,
we slowly gather, is based on affection more than it is intimate knowledge of one
another's lives. For one thing, Jody has no idea what Carl does for a living. Carl
tells colorful stories about being an art restorer at a museum, the owner of an
auto glass shop, a tabloid reporter and a corporate plant waterer among other
fictions. The more we learn about Carl, though, the more we recognize that
there's very little that is frivolous about him. Even his lies come from a painful,
rather noble place.

When Carl first starts bringing chairs into Jody's map shop, we don't know why
other than playwright Dietz is an admirer of Eugene Ionesco's play ``The Chairs."

By the beginning of the second act
Chau Ly's set on the EXIT Theatre stage is brimming with what looks like more
than a hundred chairs, some stacked in precarious towers, others cluttering up
corners and walkways.

``Lonely Planet" is not a coy play. We learn what the chairs are all about, and
like the map store itself, the chairs are a metaphor, but one the characters
acknowledge and attempt to deal with. Dietz isn't playing artsy games; he lays it
all out for us in specific detail.

Without giving too much away, the play comes to be about the way in which the
horror of AIDS rattles people's lives - not only those who have the disease but
also those who live in fear of it.

Like Wilder before him, Dietz is attempting to balance simplicity and artful
profundity. The rhythms falter somewhat in the second act, and Joe Cocker's
version of ``I Shall Be Released" is overused. Still, the poignancy comes through
quite powerfully.

Creating a believably powerful friendship on stage is no easy task, but Gaffney
and McConnel manage to convey the need, comfort and strength that makes
such a friendship one of the greatest things human beings have yet learned to
build.

``Lonely Planet" is a little gem of a play, and this warmhearted, beautifully acted
production will make you appreciate your friends and leave you wanting to make
new ones.

You can e-mail Chad Jones at cjones@angnewspapers.com or call (925)
416-4853.

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