05:54:36 am 
A Runway Kid's Story Is Only Make-Believe, Maybe
Categories: UncategorizedSometimes the fictions that we create for ourselves are more important to our survival than accepting the world's harsh realities. In Robert Aguirre-Sacasa's King of Shadows, a moderately scintillating theatrical equivalent to a science fiction or fantasy page-turner that opened last night at Theatre for a New City, a quartet of characters find that their truths become inextricably locked with others' untruths, significantly altering both.
It's the research that Jessica (Kat Foster) is undertaking for her dissertation that sets the collisions of real and unreal in motion. After posting flyers requesting interviews with homeless gay, lesbian and transgender teens throughout San Francisco, she's contacted by Nihar (Satya Bhabha), an energetic young man with a quick wit and a curious penchant for prognosticating weather events, and a incredibly strange tale about having been abducted for many centuries by the King of Shadows, a powerful being that lives in a universe running parallel to our own.
Jessica's intrigued by the young man, so much so that she agrees to meet him a second time. When he arrives for their meeting, he has a request: he wants to stay with her for two nights. After this, he says, he'll be able to escape into yet another dimension where the King will be unable to reach him. Jessica initially rebuffs Nihar, saying that she simply can't bring him into her home, which she shares with Sarah (Sarah Lord), her teen sister for whom she acts as guardian, and Eric (Richard Short), her boyfriend who's also a San Francisco cop.
While Nihar's backstory borders on the sorts of thing one reads about in science fiction or fantasy, those belonging to Jessica and Sarah, and to Eric are much more real. Sarah and Jessica had to deal with their parents' death in a freak accident some ten years ago. Eric, who's originally a New Yorker, reveals, late in the play, why he made the move west. These backstories all affect how they interact with Nihar once he does come to Jessica's home. Sarah, still resenting the fact that Jessica has moved her to the Bay area from the native Midwest, is almost inexorably drawn to the young man. Eric, not surprisingly, distrusts the boy and his story.
During the first half of the play, Aguirre-Sacasa's tale – with its supernatural elements such as the purple fog that rolls in at the close of act one – fascinates. So too do his characters – Jessica is, for instance, a riveting blend of privileged entitlement and do-gooder liberalism. It's a dichotomy that Foster pulls off with flair. But after the intermission, "Shadows" falters as complications for the characters mount incredibly even as the playwright works to bring Nihar's tale to a close.
Even during this uneven second act, though, director Connie Grappo's staging has a welcome briskness to it and scenic designer Wilson Chin provides a handsome scenic design that ingeniously converts for the play's multiple locales, even as it evokes the arcing parallel universes that Nihar says he has inhabited. Foster's central performance is ably supported by her cast-mates, particularly Lord's turn as the bitter and precocious Sarah.
There's much to enjoy in "Shadows" – including Aguirre-Sacasa's late introduction of Shakespeare into the latter portions of the play. Ultimately though, this modern supernatural stage thrilled doesn't fully the deliver the tingles it should.
---- Andy Propst
King of Shadows continues through September 28 at Theater for the New City (155 1st Avenue). Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2 and 8pm and Sunday at 7pm. Tickets are $25.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-86-4444 or by visiting www.smarttix.com. Further information is available online at: www.theworkingtheater.org.
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