‘Jenny Chow’ takes theater into the cyber world at SCR

Tom Titus

With Rolin Jones’ “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow” now enjoying

its world premiere at South Coast Repertory’s Julianne Argyros

Theater , the theater has officially entered cyberspace. What lies

ahead, one can only imagine.

Playwright Jones, a 30-year-old Yale Drama School student,

possesses a prodigious imagination, not to mention a fluency in

cyberspeak, which could boggle the minds of the more seasoned members

of his audience. Fortunately, he’s created some provocative

characters to inject periodic doses of humanity between all the bits

and bytes.

Where he misses the mark is where most playwrights encounter

pitfalls in their earlier works -- in pulling his story together with

a cogent and satisfactory conclusion.

It’s the same flaw that mars the otherwise excellent “Intimate

Apparel” by Lynn Nottage, now being staged on SCR’s Segerstrom Stage

-- unsurprising, since Jones studied under Nottage during his

creation of “Jenny Chow.” (He even sneaks her name into his play’s

dialogue.)

With an imaginative approach reminiscent of an early Steven

Spielberg, Jones has crafted a balanced piece alternating among

comedy, drama and passages only a true computer geek could fathom.

Director David Chambers takes this eclectic menage and transforms it

into a richly imaginative production.

“Jenny Chow” actually doesn’t make her appearance until late in

the first act -- as the robotic creation of a housebound young woman,

Jennifer Marcus -- Chinese by birth, American by adoption -- who is

determined to find her birth mother. A formidable task, since leaving

her Calabasas house, let alone venturing to China, is a traumatic

experience of the first order.

Behind her computer, however, Jennifer can conquer the universe --

or at least create a new life form. Going Dr. Frankenstein one

better, she uses various imported components to manufacture a girl in

her own image who will represent her in her familial quest, and who

doesn’t need a plane to fly across the Pacific.

Melody Butiu in the central role of Jennifer thrusts her

interpretive engine into overdrive to deliver this sassy, conflicted

character with her elevated strengths and abysmal weaknesses. Butiu’s

stage energy sparkles throughout, even when her character’s tank is

running on the fumes toward the end of the play. It’s a dream role,

and Butiu soars with it.

Another terrific performance is rendered by SCR regular Linda

Gehringer as Jennifer’s Type A adoptive mom (who doubles as her real

mother in China). William Francis McGuire is believable as her

sympathetic but clueless dad, an unemployed house husband who now

amuses himself watching meteor showers.

Stealing his scenes in a variety of supporting roles is J.D.

Cullum, who represents all of Jennifer’s scientific compatriots and

is particularly pungent as Dr. Yakunin, a mad scientist if ever there

was one. Daniel Blinkoff is her more down-to-earth buddy, a

semi-stoned pizza delivery guy who’s fluent in Valley speak.

Jenny Chow herself (itself?) is presented in succeeding stages of

robotic advancement by April Hong, who’s transported across the ocean

with a logic that would baffle the most advanced technophile. Hong’s

gradual infusions of humanity are skillfully delivered in a

delightful performance.

It’s after the mission is accomplished that Jones’ program

requires rebooting. An artificial conflict is followed by a fuzzy

resolution, which is unfortunate, since the production soars up to

that point.

A bit of cramming with his former professor, Nottage (whose own

play could stand some firming up at the conclusion, too), would do

both playwrights a world of good.

* TOM TITUS’ reviews run Thursdays and Saturdays.