Life Gets Complicated After This ‘Stranger’ Enters the House

More than one schizophrenic quality surfaces in “Stranger,” now at Theatre/Theater. Brett Pearsons’ new psychosexual thriller is buoyed by respectable staging and playing, while struggling to integrate a disparity of tone and scope.

At the outset, prototypical yuppie Glenn (Pearsons) is practicing golf shots at home when he is interrupted by a visitor (Max Koch) passing himself off as Davis, a close friend of Glenn’s girlfriend, Michelle. Their banter serves as expositional underpinning, planting plot turns and character traits in a wide swath.

This faintly sitcom ambience is upended when Michelle (Jeni Verdon) and the real Davis (Michael Porter) enter on the heels of the imposter’s exit.

After another deceptively chirpy scene, with nearly certified therapist Davis agreeing to treat Michelle, the narrative shifts into overdrive. In a neighborhood bar tended by the pivotal Gail (Sydney Bennett), the stranger ingratiates himself with Michelle, using information gleaned from Glenn. A series of cat-and-mouse gambits transpires.

Director Joshua Biton makes inventive use of the utilitarian setting; lighting designer David Flad’s deft deployment of limited resources is invaluable. Biton’s cast is committed though not impervious to the script’s limitations.

Pearsons’ comedy background suits Glenn’s wiseacre tendencies, less so his histrionic ones. Verdon’s Michelle traces her descending emotional arc more seamlessly than it is written, with the climactic retracing of trauma beautifully handled.

Porter’s measured rationality is appropriate, and Bennett wields her slender instrument to notable effect, particularly in unsettlingly recalling her own encounter with the stranger. Koch valiantly attempts to fuse his innate joviality with his character’s pathology with only intermittent success. He is perhaps the chief casualty of the textual discrepancies.

The overly brisk trajectory renders the twists foreseeable and, in the case of Michelle’s back story, manufactured, with the motif of therapeutic transference barely developed. True, the climactic face-off does generate frissons, yet these are still less reminiscent of classic boulevard thrillers than of episodic television, which fairly sums up this game effort.

“Stranger,” Theatre/Theater, 6425 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends July 20. $10-$15. (323) 850-8969. Mature audiences. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.