No love, just loneliness for 'Bicentennial Babies'

Who do you judge: The person you think your partner is, or the person he or she wants to become? \n"Bicentennial Babies," written by Paul Shoulberg and the first Bloomington Playwrights Project production of the 2005-06 Dark Alley Series, raised that question Saturday at the Lora Shiner Studio, even while reminding the audience again and again the play is not a love story. The dramatic action, instead, focused on the interpersonal "love" dilemma of two young Americans who dared to dream but failed to find a teammate who supported that vision.\nThe story begins by introducing the audience to Anne, portrayed by Anjanette Armstrong, and Greg, played by Zachary Spicer, who are together washed up in a "lost generation" with "unsung anthems" and "blurred visions." And no, the play has nothing to do with hippie tree-hugging or 1960s rock 'n' roll. \nInstead, Greg and Anne's theatrical journey progressed with the death of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain. It presents to the audience Greg's word of choice, "whatever," and Anne's empty and dismissive attitude, as the plagues of their generation. "Bicentennial Babies" is a remarkable example of how 20-somethings attempt to navigate modern intimate relationships within the boundaries presupposed by modern institutions like university campuses.\nArmstrong's role of Anne was terrific, and her enthusiasm for living life smothered by dreamy ideals is superb. Armstrong complimented Spicer's equally terrific portrayal of Greg, who provided the audience with a heroic character fit for High Times magazine and Scooby Doo cartoons. Spicer, although his character didn't demand a wide range of emotional servitude per se, excelled as the "dead-beat stoner guy" who hoped to one day rise up off the couch -- a home he claimed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in New York City.\nFrom the beginning of the dramatic action, the audience is led to believe that, although the play is not a love story, Greg and Anne would one day reunite in blissful glory despite their seeming incompatibility at the moment. Unbeknownst to both characters, willing suitors waited in the shadows for each to stray one step too far from each other's hearts. \nMartin, portrayed by Deven Anderson, and Cassie, portrayed by Lauren Skirvin, inject themselves into the life of Anne and Greg, and they seduce each character accordingly. Although Anderson and Skirvin add tremendous depth to an already able-bodied cast, the true kudos of "Bicentennial Babies" belongs to director Tom Robson .\nRobson, a second-year Master of Arts student in theater history, theory and literature at IU, steals the show from his crew, and his craft as dramatic artisan was revealed in many moments often unforeseen by the audience. For example, Robson's ability to whip the characters to and fro on stage as if he were snapping a rubber band truly spread the performers from one side of the stage to the next and provided the audience with constant focal variety and depth. \nTrue to form, most of the action resonated around center stage at the beginning of each scene, but the characters bounced back and forth to the sides of the stage and back to the center again as the action continued throughout the show. Robson also choreographed the characters to exchange dialogue during a few moments of a split-stage feel, which further highlighted the seeming confusion and willing romance of the characters involved.\nRobson's direction is great in the sense that the audience remains in a constant state of stupor until the end of the performance, in which each community member yearns for the play to end up as a love story despite the continual foreshadowing of the opposite. Anne's fling with Martin comes to an end as does Greg's fling with Cassie. Both Greg and Anne are alone and unhappy at the end of "Bicentennial Babies," and each will remain in that condition, the audience is told, until they both "find something better." Unfortunately for both characters, the true love of their lives might have stood in front of their faces the entire time, if only each could have judged the other for who he or she wanted to become and not for whom that person was at the moment.\nMaybe even more unfortunate for America, on the other hand, is the play's realization that an entire generation of young people have grown up to chase false ideals of romance and to settle for false realities of companionship based on MTV dreams and modern media.