Theatre in Review: Trash (Out of the Box Theatrics/PAC NYC)

	Andrew Morrill. Photo: Rebecca J. Michelson

Meet the odd couple, 2026 edition: Trash features the crankiest pair of roommates since Neil Simon had Oscar Madison and Felix Unger take up embattled residence. Jake and Tim, the domestic antagonists of James Caverly and Andrew Morrill's new comedy, are, after eighteen months or so, fed up with each other. An indication of their dynamic: Jake holds up a whiteboard sign that says, "My diet starts today." Tim chimes in with a scrawled message of his own: "Fucker wants to eat healthy." This is followed by an extended and acrimonious wrangle over the health properties (or lack thereof) of Honey Nut Cheerios. Can this relationship be saved?

The whiteboards are deployed because the characters, played by Caverly (Jake) and Morrill (Tim), are Deaf. Indeed, the authors and their director, Nathaniel P. Claridad, have many ways of conveying the action to the audience: Signs, surtitles, a window that proves useful for jotting down notes, and the Jukebox, a humanoid figure who, once a dollar is inserted into his jacket pocket, speaks the characters' dialogue. Certain (and fairly lengthy) sequences are performed entirely in American Sign Language; one gets the gist, if not the nuances.

What drives Jake and Tim's conflicts? What doesn't? Among other things, there's Jake's on-and-off thing with Carly, a hearing Internet influencer and "sex banshee," who prefers Deaf men thanks to her penchant for screaming during sex. (She also plans to purvey her sexual adventures with Deaf guys into an inspirational best-seller.) And there's Tim's secret (but not for long) affair with Nicolas, their hearing landlord, which comes with financial benefits. There's also the matter of Tim's ankle bracelet, the result of an unfortunate run-in with an uncomprehending cop; as with just about everything else, opinions differ about whether Jake or Tim is responsible. Typically, it all comes to a head over a minor issue, in this case, who will take out the trash. (To be clear, Tim, under house arrest, is looking for legal trouble if he leaves the apartment.) This leads to an exhumation of the bag's contents to determine who is the bigger contributor to their communal store of garbage.

I don't know about garbage, but each man has plenty of baggage. Jake is a natural striver, a Gallaudet graduate who "refuses to be one of those Deaf motherfuckers on SSI who are either too dumb or too lazy to work." Tim, who references his acceptance letters from Brown, Georgetown, Duke, and Yale, is content to collect unemployment, rather than end up in the "bubble," which he describes as "teaching at the same Deaf school we graduated from, working at the same companies that other Deaf people work at." Pouncing on Jake's admission that he hates his job as an account manager for a video relay service, Tim notes, "Deaf people can spend $80,000 for a worthless diploma and work their way up, but we will continue to be squashed under the mighty heel of audism." He adds, "You can call me a lazy bum all you want, but I would rather be a bum and work the system than fight it."

These are good points, as is an eleventh-hour recital of all the issues the men struggle with, including "hearing anxiety, not feeling good enough, dinner table syndrome, isolation," and "depression." The script is especially acute in diagnosing Tim's relationship with Nicolas; the latter is ready for partnership, but Tim won't commit to a hearing man. Having to deal with Nicolas' hearing friends would, he says, reduce him to "a dog, not a boyfriend."

The funny thing about Trash is that it's not all that funny; it's a comedy founded on (rightful) grievance, and the latter quality overwhelms the former. The Carly subplot is more amusing as an idea than in execution, although Rebecca Spigelman has the zest of an online oracle communing with the hundred-thousand best friends. Jake's monologue about another, more airheaded lover, is pretty crass, ending with him saying, "I couldn't imagine a future with, literally, a Deaf and dumb girl." Tormented by five months of celibacy, he adds, "I rubbed one out. I did. I did it in shame, hidden away in the bedroom with a carefully folded landing strip of toilet paper and blew out pints." (This is my nomination for TMI Speech of the Year.) There's also an awkward bit of business when a filled condom is pulled out of the trash, causing Nicolas to wonder, "What is my semen doing on the floor?" (Another line that will be hard to top this season; Vishal Vaidya is sufficiently appealing that one can't help rooting for Nicolas to prevail over Tim; then again, maybe he's better off without a depressed, unemployed boyfriend.

Caverly and Morrill are gifted performers with something to say, but the situation comedy format may not be ideal for their purposes. To be sure, they pile on various theatrical devices. Jake and Tim (if not the others) are aware of the audience's existence, and we are drafted to vote on various plot points. (This device is responsible for most of the evening's fun.) The Jukebox device is a little murky: He exists to deliver dialogue to us, but, to the hearing characters, he dispenses music. (Chris Ogren, who plays him, is the show's most charming presence, however.) From time to time, a followspot picks out a member of the audience, identifying them as a character from Jake or Tim's past; it serves mostly as a distraction.

The production is slickly designed, beginning with Suzu Sakai's kitchen set, which serves as a screen for Taylor Edelle Stuart's kicky projections, which resemble the title credits of an eighties-era action thriller. Nikolya Sereda's costumes draw measurable distinctions between Tim's casual style and Jake's more expensive wardrobe; also, check out the Jukebox's LED-packed shirt, which lights up in a rainbow of colors. Annie Wiegand's lighting is solid. Howard Ho's sound design, including the use of percussion between scenes and the pounding of angry neighbors, comes with a significant low-end component, probably so it can be felt by Deaf audience members.

Buried inside Trash is some extremely fertile material, and there are more than a few moments when the script crackles with justified anger. But, like the title contents, it's a bit of a jumble that could use some sorting out. As a parting shot, the audience gets to vote on which roommate must move out. The script offers different endings for each outcome, but it doesn't really matter. We finally arrive at the moment that was obvious more than an hour earlier. These two guys are much better off apart. --David Barbour