Theater review: Ritu Comes Home

Well-meaning Jason (David Bardeen) and Brendan (Jered McLenigan) buy good karma by sponsoring a child in a distant impoverished country. “We give,” quips Brendan, “without the hassle of receiving.” What if the kid suddenly shows up? Ritu Comes Home, a new comedy by Peter Gil-Sheridan commissioned by InterAct Theatre Company, imagines just that. 

For their 80 cents a day, the Lower Merion couple — settled in Roman Tatarowicz’s handsomely pristine living room set — receive updates from Bangladeshi teenager Ritu (Rebecca Khalil). “Does it mention rice?” jokes friend Yesenia about Ritu’s latest letter during their regular Friday night drinking party. Profane and politically incorrect, the trio dish about their $10,000 rug and their lost dog FluffyTuffy’s $200-a-month antidepressant bill. 

Then Ritu magically appears, and the expected crushing collision with poverty’s stark conditions  instead builds the comedy. The boys’ first concern is that they’ll have to cancel their Puerto Rican vacation. Though they can’t understand Ritu, we hear her in English; we soon learn that she’s as moody, rebellious and shallowly obsessed with American fashion as any teen. 

When Jason magically disappears, kept man Brendan and “retired actress” and lost soul Yesenia face raising Ritu alone, and serious issues emerge while they play house. Can Brendan and Yesenia be straight partners? Can they provide for Ritu without Jason’s lucrative job and persnickety control? Akash (Amar Srivastava), Ritu’s Bangladeshi fiancé, shows up, and assumptions are exploded in surprising ways. More magic — the play’s daring unexplained twist, which fits Gil-Sheridan’s extreme characters — results in a satisfying conclusion. 

Ritu Comes Home, $22-$38, through June 22, InterAct Theatre Company at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-568-8079, interacttheatre.org.