Unfortunately, that fact, like Angela's feelings for Tom and any hope for coherence in this story, is buried under her many layers of mental instability. Between her exorcising multiple personality demons and exercising her sex-for-money machinations, what she says is always suspect. (Even if Tom got something, it’s unlikely her word would stand up in court, given her mental illness and history of bedding - so she claims - many key figures in the case.)
Still, hope of righting this injustice is Tom’s stated reason for again leaving his wife’s bed and risking a house call to Angela’s. We begin to get the groundwork for a fascinating story about compulsive behavior, addiction to the wrong people, truth, lies, and fantasy. Unfortunately, Kehler’s cop is a theatrical flatfoot. If this play can work at all (and it apparently didn’t in Miller’s staging either), it needs someone who can transmit this man’s multi-leveled frustration, passion, and anger. What Kehler offers is discomfort, weariness, and some sense of moral indignation. He does offer anger as well, but the two or three times we see Tom’s outrage, it explodes out of his placid demeanor like a monster bursting up out of a loch. It feels stagy and further hinders our engagement.
It must be reported here that press night was twice delayed a week, a not inconsequential bit of evidence in determining what has been committed here. That clue may or may not connect to Kehler’s half-dozen word stumbles – roughly double this reviewer’s (generous) allowance for a performance (even by a Non-Equity actor). For her part, Barkette also is asked to create a character with so much submerged and unexplained baggage that she is drowning in opportunities for overplaying. To her credit, she does not, except for scenes in which Miller and Arabian make her jump through multiple personality hoops. They don’t really land, but she can be forgiven considering the general confusion of the enterprise.
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