Firehouse play crumbles under weirdness

Rich Griset

Contributing Writer

Three females, Justin Timberlake and one decrepit apartment. These are the elements of Firehouse Theatre Project’s “Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake).” While they might seem like the ingredients of a potentially dark and quirky theatre masterpiece, Sheila Callaghan’s script stops short of the finish line.

“Crumble” stars Christina Billew as the awkward 11-year-old Janice and Jen Meharg as her Mother.

Since the loss of their father/husband in the previous year, failed communication and unexpressed emotions have become the norm of their relationship. Janice has disappeared into her own head in an effort to keep the rest of the world at bay. Mother has become a hyperventilating, neurotic mess, that’s afraid of her daughter.

Billew’s believable performance as the eccentric “tween-ager” is the highlight of the show. She plays with dolls and Clorox, experiments with dangerous chemicals and would rather shake her booty at her mother than give her a straight answer to a question.

Meharg, too does a wonderful job as the mother who – try as she might – can not connect with her daughter. Parents in the audience will identify with her as she tries to deal with the pressures of raising a child.

Mother’s one support is her sister Barbara, played by Lisa Kotula. Barbara who is barren, has taken to offering her sister advice and caring for her 57 cats. Kotula does a good job as the sister trying to help, but a scene in which her cats fight each other goes on much too long and distracts from the rest of the play.

The apartment in which “Crumble” takes place looks as though it could double as a set for a movie about nuclear fallout. The wallpaper is peeling, the heat doesn’t work and every once in a while large pieces of the ceiling crash to the floor.

But the apartment has a spokesperson in Frank Creasy as … The Apartment. Dressed in a tux with tails, Creasy’s soliloquies about his fall from grace as an elegant mansion to his current squalor are comedic, but sometimes a bit overdone. Creaks in the floorboards are actually his flatulence, radiators are now sexual and The Apartment contemplates murdering his occupants as payback for his current disrepair. Having The Apartment as a character makes an already weird play weirder.

Of course, no play that mentions Justin Timberlake in its title can go without a few guest appearances by Mr. SexyBack himself. Almost every one of Matt Hackman’s appearances as the former *NSYNC-er solicits applause. So what if Hackman’s voice sounds nothing like Timberlake’s—he’s got enough moxie to “Rock Your Body.”

The most troubled part of the play is its ending. Just before the climax, the play loses all steam, and the resolution is extremely unsatisfying. Even an open-ended finale would have made more sense. In the end, it just seems like Callaghan was scrambling for a solution.

While the play has its moments – both humorous and dramatic – it simply lacks the charm to balance its weirdness. Firehouse should be applauded for taking on such a daring play, but it just isn’t worth the payoff.

‘Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)’ runs Thursdays through Sundays at 8 p.m. at the Firehouse Theatre Project until March 20. Tickets are $10 for students and $25 for non-students. Two “pay-what-you-will” performances are scheduled for 4 p.m. on March 7 and March 14.