English playwright Charlotte Jones’ 2001 comedy is like a dazzling yet oddly odorless rose, lovely in concept though strangely unsatisfactory. I ache to adore it, yet I also crave something more.
Loosely lifted from Hamlet, Humble Boy starts with pantywaist astrophysicist Felix Humble (Jason Marr) returning home for his father’s funeral. There his vainglorious mother Flora (Macall Gordon) has rid their countryside house of her late husband’s belongings, including a beloved batch of bees. Moreover, even before his death, she took up with boorish neighbor George Pye (Mike Dooly). (If they get married, it will make her Humble-Pye.) From there, Jones explores love, loss, and letting go of the past via much passive-aggressive arguing and humor. Excursions into physics and references to Stephen Hawking’s “theory of everything” also give the proceedings a brainy, Stoppardian tinge.
Director Marcus Goodwin matches the show’s design elements like companion plants at Kubota Garden. Richard Schaefer’s sumptuous green set suggests tea and cucumber sandwiches in the Cotswolds. Candace Frank’s comely costumes capture every character component: When Felix attends a family (dys)function, his too-small suit and garish wide tie—belonging to his dead dad—indicate his profound apprehension.
Goodwin’s artfully arranged cast also includes Alyssa Keene as the brazen Rosie (George’s daughter, also Felix’s former girlfriend). Particularly funny is a scene in which she sympathetically suggests ex-sex with Felix to clear his mind of mundane moral choices, scholastic suspicions, and humdrum mama drama. Instead of worrying about superstring theory, why not make like the birds and bees? No less effective is Dooly, who encourages such contempt for George that I cheered his comic comeuppance.
Yet despite the heirloom seeds of talent here, the script’s soil is unstable. Jones’ long first act languishes with lagniappe language; then the second shifts to amusing alacrity. Also, I was left digging for exposition. Felix has ringing in his ears . . . why? Is this important? Is he blooming mad like Hamlet, or what?
One could go on forever with the gardening, floral, and apiary metaphors. Goodwin (and Jones) create an elegant topiary maze, but it ultimately leads to a feeling of meh. If Hamlet was ineluctable tragedy, Humble Boy is more ragged, unkempt comedy. For a better treatment of science and tangled family tumult, there’s Stoppard’s Arcadia, Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, or David Auburn’s Proof—the 2005 filmed version of which is probably available on Netflix.
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HUMBLE BOY Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Greenlake Dr. N., 524-1300, seattlepublictheater.org. $5–$32. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Feb. 15.
