By Aaron Krause
Erin Proctor’s moving play [overlap] begins as many romantic comedies do: Boy meets girl and they almost immediately fall in love. But just when you think Proctor’s piece will follow a tired “rom com” trope, the play takes a supernatural turn and is ultimately emotionally satisfying yet imperfect. Still, [overlap] is worth your time — and that of theater artists.
One of your first chances to experience it ends this weekend at Main Street Playhouse in Miami Lakes. That is where the nonprofit, absurdist and experimental theater company Lakehouseranchdotpng has mounted a touching world premiere professional production that is believable, humorous, and poignant (bring tissues). It lasts about an hour and 45 minutes, including a brief intermission.
Under Lakehouseranchdotpng Artistic Director Brandon Urrutia’s sensitive direction, the production stars talented performers Maleeha Naseer, Samuel Krogh, and Beverly Blanchette. The play is set in contemporary New York City and Arizona — and yes, [overlap] is the correct title.
Characters and Story
Maya is a 20-something, self-destructive, edgy playwright out to prove something. Meanwhile, Daniel is a young, overly cautious and nervous dramaturg seeking connection. The two meet at a coffee shop in New York, start working together, and quickly fall in love. But when unexpected tragedy strikes, only Daniel remains to stage their play. Maya’s mother, Marleen, also remains behind, sour about her strained relationship with her just-deceased estranged daughter. Before Maya can fully cross over to the “other side,” her ghost lingers to resolve unfinished business.
The actors perform on Urrutia’s sparse set design, appropriately painted dark and missing doors. The walkways where the doors would normally rest might suggest portals between this world and the “other side.”
[overlap] succeeds early on because it follows a rule that playwrights (and all fiction writers) should learn: Make characters likable. Indeed, if we don’t care about the people in a play, film, or novel, little else matters. Proctor introduces us to recognizable, if not fully developed characters. Maya is bubbly, enthusiastic, and totally in love with her “crush,” Daniel. True, she’s self-destructive, but she ingratiates herself to us. She’s also “magnetic,” according to Daniel, who asks her, “Do you have magnets inside you?”
Speaking of Daniel, he is cautious — and something of a nervous wreck. But he’s also sweet, and as passionate as Maya about their shared love of live theater. Even if you’re not a theater aficionado, the pair’s enthusiasm is contagious and draws us to them.
When we meet Marleen, she seems caught off guard and acts somewhat sarcastic when Daniel calls her to break the news about her daughter’s death in a subway derailment accident. The young man searched Maya’s phone and found Marleen’s number there.
As we learn, mother and daughter have been estranged for a while, so they weren’t on the best of terms. But as the play progresses, Marleen proves to be a soft-hearted woman who develops a positive relationship with Daniel. While she is a devout Christian, she doesn’t hammer others over the head with her beliefs.
“The only thing that has been able to stay constant is my faith,” Marleen tells Daniel. “I found God at a very low point in my life.” However, we don’t learn what happened to make her find the Lord. Adding that information could have deepened Marleen’s character just a bit, making her more sympathetic.
Tragedy and Chaos
These characters’ lives are forever changed in an instant. That’s partially why we identify with them and their circumstances. One moment, Maya is riding New York City’s subway on her way to meet Daniel to work on their play and then have dinner. Then, suddenly, we hear a loud crash and the lighting appropriately turns red. We also hear unsettling static and screaming. The train has derailed, and Maya was among the passengers killed.
In Lakehouseranchdotpng’s production, the crash happens with no forewarning, mirroring life’s fragility and unpredictability. “I just… Literally two days ago… we were hanging out on my fire escape,” Daniel tells Marleen. “It all just happened so fast… everything. Just everything.” That quote sounds eerily familiar in 2026, when unwelcome news greets us seemingly daily.
To the production’s credit, Urrutia and company have found at least one way to express a sense of overwhelm and chaos. Once Daniel is home from Maya’s funeral in Arizona, he gets flooded with sympathy texts. As part of sound designer Alex Tarradell’s fine work, we hear the loud buzzing of messages coming in rapid succession. The relentless sound becomes an inner expression of the chaos unfolding in Daniel’s mind.
Another upsetting scene, however, may leave you confused. Suddenly, we hear a scream that likely startles more than one patron. A harsh light blinds us at the same time (lighting designer Leo Urbina). While it’s not entirely clear, we may infer that it’s Maya’s ghost suddenly landing in a zone somewhere between this world and the “other side.” She’s trapped in between, with unfinished business remaining before she can fully pass on.
One bit of that remaining business is a meeting of reconciliation between mother and daughter. One of the play’s shortcomings is that the pair make up too easily. It happens after just one meeting, even though Maya and Marleen have been on bad terms for years. Perhaps after several encounters, the reconciliation would feel more earned. Generally, [overlap] honestly explores grief and is a true tearjerker. But the hurried emotional catharsis blunts its impact a bit.
Another issue is that we learn too little about Daniel. We know he’s practically a non-observant Jew who sang in his school’s choir. But Proctor tells us little, for instance, about his family. And while we know he’s a dramaturg, the play doesn’t fully explain what that is. Audience members unfamiliar with theater may not understand the stakes of Daniel’s work. Adding just a few more details about Daniel would flesh him out and make him even more identifiable. Briefly clarifying the role of a dramaturg — a literary advisor who provides historical, cultural, and thematic context and serves as a bridge between script and stage — would also further illuminate the collaborative process of live storytelling. For [overlap], the dramaturg is Rosalind Elise Parenzan.
And what about the play that Daniel and Maya were planning to stage? She’s titled it The Untitled Dinosaur Play; Or, Life After the End. But beyond that, we don’t know what it’s about, and we never see it fully staged. One may wonder why they weren’t planning instead to produce one of Maya’s more controversial plays. In Mother of God, the Virgin Mary has an abortion. The piece is one of Maya’s “scathing satires” of Christianity, written in response to her religious upbringing.
“Is that why you hate her?” Daniel asks Maya. “Because she’s a brainwashed evangelical fundie nut?”
“Not entirely,” Maya responds. She recalls growing up immersed in Christian doctrine, believing that Hell was real and that it was her responsibility to “save” others. She also recounts the suicide of a close friend who had been outed as a lesbian — and her fear that the girl was “burning in Hell.” Staging Mother of God would have given voice to Maya’s frustrations and sent a clear message about artistic freedom — that attempts to censor art ultimately fail. “I couldn’t live in a house with someone who wanted to destroy my art,” Maya tells Daniel.
Love, Humor, and Heart
Not all of [overlap] is dark. In fact, parts of the play are sweet, bordering on sentimental. In the script and Lakehouseranchdotpng’s production, it’s always clear that Maya and Daniel are deeply in love.
Urrutia, with the help of intimacy choreographer Neka Knowles, creates telling and memorable stage pictures. In one, Daniel’s head rests in Maya’s lap as she gently pats his hair. The play even includes somewhat raunchy humor. At one point, Daniel presses on one of Maya’s breasts, prompting her to instantly say, “Honk.” At another, Maya quips, “I’ve given a lot of blowjobs in my day. I’m somewhat of a Nancy Reagan.”
Of course, while the play includes humorous moments, it’s ultimately a serious piece about grief and expression through art. And it provides a voice to young people and their attempts to find meaning in life. Writing about young characters, their hopes, and struggles is one way to encourage young audiences to frequently attend theater. If such patrons believe theater artists are reflecting their lives onstage, they are more likely to become regular theatergoers. And that is important for an art form that is seeing its regular audiences aging. Live theater audiences have historically been on the older side, with Baby Boomers and seniors comprising the largest segments. However, recent trends indicate an effort to attract younger demographics (Gen Z/Millennials).
Lakehouseranchdotpng is certainly part of that trend. It deserves praise for allowing promising young writers such as Proctor to develop their work and add it to the theatrical cannon. The company produces absurdist and experimental theater, genres that may attract audiences who ordinarily wouldn’t attend live theater. As for its production of [overlap], this mounting adds to the award-winning company’s impressive body of work during its short life so far.
Urrutia, Indy Sulliero, and Gabriel Perez founded the company in August 2022. They met at Florida International University and launched the experimental theater company to showcase new playwrights in Miami’s suburbs. During its short life so far, Lakehouseranchdotpng has already won a Silver Palm Award for Outstanding New/Emerging Theatre Company. The company’s long name comes from a Google image search of Lakewood Ranch during the pandemic.
The current production of [overlap] isn’t the first time Proctor has collaborated with the company. It staged her piece Plague Play as a world premiere in August 2023. That staging launched the company’s second season. And now, four years after its founding, the company continues to impress.
Performances
Lakehouse’s mostly young cast of [overlap] succeeds in bringing humanity to recognizable characters without excess sentimentality. The chemistry between Naseer and Krogh, as the young couple at the center of [overlap], is consistently strong. They’re charming together, and believable as a young couple sincerely in love and with plenty to live for. That’s why it’s so heartbreaking when Maya dies in the subway derailment.
While it’s easy to pull for the characters, they’re hardly perfect — and this cast does a fine job portraying their roles with nuance and depth, warts and all. Krogh is believably nervous as Daniel, speaking in a voice that rises in pitch and speeds up as Daniel’s anxiety increases. We can also hear the performer’s breath, and at one point, we fear that Krogh’s Daniel will hyperventilate because he’s breathing so rapidly. But the actor is also convincingly sweet, and his voice believably breaks when Daniel informs Marleen of her daughter’s death.
Krogh is a versatile actor. In a review of Lakehouseranchdotpng’s 2023 production of Rabbit by Riley Elton McCarthy, I noted that Krogh’s Kade conveyed a maniacal intensity that called to mind Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. But if Krogh’s portrayal in Rabbit suggested the cunning of a fox, here he’s as uptight as a cat.
As Maya, Naseer is instantly likable, and that’s important if we want to sincerely grieve her passing. With a winning smile, a bright laugh, and pleasant voice, Naseer makes it obvious why a young man would fall in love with Maya. The performer’s smart acting choices include a wink at us and playful and light punches to Daniel’s arm. Also, Naseer wisely resists trying to be spooky as Maya’s ghost (this is not a horror story).
Blanchette’s mouth is open in shock and horror after Daniel breaks the tragic news to Marlene. At another point, her watery eyes clearly indicate that Blanchette has internalized her portrayal of the grieving estranged mother. Blanchette’s Marlene believably acts motherly toward Daniel. While she’s a bit underdeveloped, Blanchette, like her castmates, delivers a strong performance.
A minor distraction occurs when Maya comments that Daniel has shaved — though the actor clearly sports a mustache and beard. But that’s a small nitpick in an otherwise compelling production.
Conclusion
Despite its shortcomings, [overlap] is a heartbreaking theatrical piece, leavened with enough humor to make the play not only bearable but absorbing — hopefully, Lakehouseranchdotpng’s world premiere production is just the beginning of the play’s theatrical life.
[overlap] from Lakehouseranchdotpng by Erin Proctor plays this weekend 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; as well as 2 p.m. Sunday, at the Main Street Playhouse, 6812 Main St. in Miami Lakes. For tickets visit www.lakehouseranchdotpng.com.
A PaperStreet Web Design
