When you see a semi-truck driver cradling a cell phone between his shoulder and ear rumbling down a residential street and consider the new gadgets — GPS and TV or DVD players — we have in our cars to go along with the old standard, the radio, you have to ask: Are we getting too used to multi-tasking and can we ever truly focus on just one thing in this modern age? It used to be that the most distracted drivers were men shaving or women putting on their make-up on the way to work or parents, usually mothers, driving too many unruly kids to school.
In Lisa Loomer's Distracted at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the world premiere production begins the minute you walk up the stairs to find your seat. Elaine J. McCarthy's multileveled though spare set has what amounts to screens that run a collage of commercials, news, and TV show segments running loud and continuously until the actual play begins. It's as if someone has gone crazy channel surfing — none of the snippets completely play out and the noise is a jumble of words and messages. Some audience members didn't quite understand and complained loudly.
Have no doubt. Loomer's play has a message, but it's not spelled out or hammered into our heads like a TV commercial with a catchy jingle. Her message, or messages, are delivered with a smirk, a smile, and sometimes a shrug of the shoulder — we are almost given more questions to ponder than real answers.
The play follows two loving parents whose 8-year-old son has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD or attention deficit hyperactive disorder, ADHD, as it is now known) as they get various opinions from teachers, doctors, psychiatrists, and New Age gurus. The mother (Rita Wilson) narrates this journey and her tone is light. Initially, she shows us why it's so hard for her to get through her daily prayer for serenity. The husband is a bit abrasive and skeptical, played by Ray Porter with hair longer than his stage wife's. Pulled back into a functional but not fashionable pony tail, we are meant to read rebel without a cause and pre-mullet fossilization. There's the kid, angry, demanding, and disrespectful. We hear the strident angry voice of the child (Hudson Thames), but do not actually see him on stage until the very end. I actually doubted we would see him at all.
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