10,000 Things

Despite an interesting premise, its talented cast and some pleasantly hummable song numbers, The Wilbury Theatre Group's world premiere production of "10,000 Things" misses the mark, or perhaps never really finds its target.

Written and directed by Erik Ehn, who teaches playwriting at Brown University, "10,000 Things" is a veritable hodgepodge of performance art, cinematic lighting, graphic imagery, interpretative movement, puppetry and original folk music.

While I applaud The Wilbury Group for tackling such experimental, tech-heavy material (no small feat, both on or off stage) and I typically commend playwrights for thinking outside the box, there is no discernible plot here, which makes for a long, confusing ninety minutes.

From what I was able to decipher, a young boy and girl run away from home and get lost in the woods. Their journey is visually -- and cleverly -- charted by scrolling, hand-drawn images of a forest and the various objects and obstacles they encounter along the way. The girl survives and returns home, however the boy isn't so lucky.

The script uses a David Lynch-esque collection of characters and sequence of events, as well as every available (but not always recognizable) stage maneuver imaginable. The opening scene has the performance space enclosed within a border of cellophane, actors occasionally appear as shadows, either behind a sheet or on the ceiling, and another arrives as a puppet.

The seemingly randomly assorted cast includes a priest, a one-eyed woman, a cellist, a fisherman, an acrobat and an alcoholic mother.

Events and scenes have no clear beginning or end, with songs and jumbled physical routines interspersed to break what little flow there is between them. I would have thought I was watching an improvisational exercise, had the delivery not been so deliberately choreographed.

All that being said, the entire cast deserves tremendous praise for executing such intricate (albeit disjointed) activity. Those especially worthy of mention include a studious Jessica March as the young girl, Marantha; Taliq Tillman, stoic as the boy's brother, Royce; Shannon Hartman for mastering both guitar and puppet; and Christine Treglia, purposefully poised as a mother in mourning.

"10,000 Things" is inarguably an experience, just not an especially memorable one, unfortunately.

"10,000 Things" runs through Oct. 29 at The Wilbury Theatre Group, 393 Broad Street in Providence. For information and tickets, call 401-400-7100 or visit www.thewilburygroup.org.