fracture/mechanics

PRUDE MECHANICALS Blakewell and Colin Raymond keep their clothes on.

Photo: Jonathan L. Green

A series of quick-cut scenes from the sex life of a deeply unhappy young woman (Blakewell) comprises this uneven and ultimately empty new play. One hipster dude after another appears, disappears and reappears in the nameless woman’s bed (which spins handsomely on a turntable at the center of Jeremy Smith’s nicely unadorned set). Meanwhile, she drinks a lot, makes bad life choices and talks about making bad life choices.

The trouble is, we don’t get any sense of her life outside the bedroom until far too late in the game; there’s no signification of why she’s so troubled in relationships or why she makes the choices she makes, so we can only view her as an abstraction. Thus the sudden, oddly specific left turn in Avidon’s script feels unexpected but, more importantly, unearned. The playwright, an M.F.A. candidate at Brown, leans on a Bright Eyes song to represent her character’s emotional breakthrough; deferring to Conor Oberst for her play’s big turning point illustrates the lack of insight Avidon brings to the table. Blakewell does an admirable job of making an intensely whiny character somewhat likable, and there’s engaging work from the supporting cast. But Avidon’s play is too fractured for its own good.