Theatre in Review: Chasing Happy (Pulse Theatre/Theatre Row) Nick, a middle-aged architect living in Provincetown, is a mess, and not just because he's the central character of Michel Wallerstein's wayward, enervated comedy. He has just enjoyed the sex of his dreams with Brad, a well-toned twink half his age, who, alas, is headed home to his boyfriend. Then Helen, Nick's brittle ex-wife, makes a surprise appearance, bearing the news that she needs an operation, after which she will need a colostomy bag. While Nick tries to offer comfort, Rob, Brad's furious lover, bursts in, seeking revenge. Fisticuffs are threatened and fleets of F-bombs are dropped but keep your eye on that door: Here comes Maria, Nick's bizarre mother, who announces, "I have been kidnapped by aliens!" At this point, I felt like I had been kidnapped by aliens, so detached from recognizable reality is Chasing Happy, a play populated with humanoid characters doing determinedly wacky things. There's Maria's insistence that George Clooney picked her up on a New York subway. Hang on for Brad's paintings -- he's an artist, you know -- a series of night sky studies with a recurring motif of flying saucers. And let's not forget the scene in which Maria, dressed like a shaman -- think Betty White in The Proposal -- conducts a weird separation ceremony that ends with Nick and Rob agreeing to avoid Brad for four weeks. And, of course, when it looks like Rob and Nick might get together, Nick is dressed as a gladiator and Rob is in a bunny suit. It's all so adorable, I can barely bring myself to tell you about it. Chasing Happy is a storehouse of loose plot elements. The subplot about Helen's health issues, which initially looks to add a note of seriousness, goes nowhere. Maria becomes Brad's manager, promising to launch his art career and spiriting him off to Florida, where she is in an assisted living facility. (With those tiny shorts and chest-baring shirts, Brad must really perk up the place.) Nick and Rob, sworn enemies, team up to build an art gallery for Nick, completing it in just one month. And then there's Nick's side career, giving bookstore readings of a self-help book (it's the play's namesake) written by his late partner. In Rob's mordant description, "It feels like one big stew of Deepak Chopra, mixed with some Marianne Williamson and Eckhart Tolle, and throw in some gay cliché stuff and you got Chasing Happy." Nick's strange devotion to his late lover's legacy is revealed in a twist you'll probably see coming. The director, Alexa Kelly, has apparently urged her cast to opt for a slam-bang sitcom approach. As Nick, Spencer Conaway Aste stands around, looking quizzical and doing double-takes. Armed with a British accent, Jenny Bennett treats her lines like high-comedy gems. But all the technique in the world won't help when have to say, "Let's face it, a single woman my age has two choices: Be a fag hag or a lesbian." Schyler Conaway, dressed in the skimpiest of outfits, struggles to make sense of Brad, who hates that everyone treats him like a himbo; he should complain to the playwright, who wrote him that way. As Rob, Christopher James Murray behaves like a maniac in his first appearance, then settles into the most thoughtful, likable person onstage. As Maria, Antoinette LaVecchia carries on like the fifth Golden Girl, calling her mild-mannered son "a drama queen," launching an organization called Old Lives Matter, and confronting the latest turn in the Brad-Nick-Rob, triangle by chuckling, "You gays never cease to amaze me." She spends the evening chasing zany. Christian Flemming's living room set looks a tad suburban to be the home of a supposedly distinguished architect, but it is attractive enough and the ground plan accommodates the characters' endless running around. Lighting designer Joyce Liao pulls off a couple of attractive effects, most notably a transition from the living room to a nearby beach. Costume designer Elena Vannoni has fun with Helen and Maria's outrageous fashion styles. Joel Abbott's sound design fills the time between scenes with cuts from George Michael, Peggy Lee, and Billie Eilish, among others. No one would enjoy a return to the days of slick sex comedies more than I, but Chasing Happy will do little to advance the cause. Even the frothiest, most artificial romp needs to bear some resemblance to life as it is really lived. The people in Chasing Happy act like they were conceived by an old TV sitcom and not one of the better ones. They're artificial in the wrong way. --David Barbour 
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