If you’re in the market for a thought-provoking new play that’s as effortlessly entertaining as formally innovative, then you’d be much remiss to skip Miami company LakeHouseRanchPNG’s premiere of playwright Robert Kerr’s Have You Seen Boomer. This crisp and compelling piece follows the evolution and devolution of the romantic relationship between its only two characters, a woman named Jess and a man named Mark. As is immediately apparent thanks in part to sparse but effective set design from Indy Sulliero, we meet the two as they are moving in together, on day 1 of their new lives in a new apartment.
From there, the rest of the play tracks the pair on subsequent days ranging from 2 to 3,425,861, offering relatable slice-of-life moments while subtly sowing the seeds of discord to come. However, the thing that truly elevates this work into more than your average domestic drama is the way Kerr’s dialogue uses recognizable absurdist techniques in his rendering of the couple’s circular arguments. In his hands, the rituals of domesticity and the repetition of grievances, suspicions, and requests acquire an impactfully haunting cadence.
Contrary to what one might assume, the play’s title also does not refer to the generational class of “baby boomers” as opposed to one of the more central of these metaphoric motifs- the two’s conspicuously missing pet cat. If you’ve ever seen Waiting For Godot, you might be able to guess how this particular plot thread ultimately pans out—but it also doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to suggest that Have You Seen Boomer packs about as much existential punch as Beckett’s seminal masterpiece into a far more comprehensible package.
Though neither Jess nor Mark is particularly fleshed out outside their toxic tete-a-tete, that aspect only adds to the universality of it all, making the two into an Everycouple that most can see aspects of themselves and their relationships in. Yet there is a world of nuance in the way the two relate to one another, and director Karina Batchelor-Gómez proves herself remarkably adept in bringing out that nuance, guiding the show’s cast in layered performances that stunningly reflect their complex dynamic. Thanks to her as well as to the boundless charm and total commitment of actors Bianca Utset and Richard Weber, it’s still easy to connect to the wayward pair—which means that the play’s revelations of loss and betrayal are viscerally heart-wrenching.
But you can also rest assured that Have You Seen Boomer offers more than enough laugh-out-loud humor to compensate for these more painful moments. Particularly memorable and uproarious were the sequences that explored Jess and Mark’s noticeably skewed sexual dynamic. Despite the fact that Kerr’s stage directions specify that the play’s actors are never to touch one another—nor to use props or even to mime with imaginary objects—the performers manage to convey the “vibe” of the moment clear as day with help from intimacy coordinator Nicole Perry.
