theater

Arden's 'Under the Skin' has humor and heart, but only goes skin-deep

"This story is not about kidneys," we're told in the first moments, "but about the human heart, the boundaries of the body, and the limits of love." Thanks, but shouldn't we be allowed to figure this out for ourselves?

'Under the Skin' at Arden Theatre
Sabina Louise Pierce

Philadelphian Michael Hollinger’s new play contains the heart and humor we’ve come to expect from the author of Opus, Ghost-Writer, and five other plays premiered by the Arden Theatre Company, but in an arrangement that’s less than the sum of its parts.

Under the Skin takes on the life-and-death issue of organ transplants, with plenty of eye-opening statistics about the need for more donors as well as doubts about a system in which one can be freely gifted a donation that might endanger the donor’s life, but cannot buy that lifesaving organ. Lou (Douglas Rees) approaches his estranged daughter Raina (Julianna Zinkel) about giving him a kidney, but she’s reticent, resentful of her dad’s infidelities, which she blames for her mother’s death.

Heavy stuff.

However, Hollinger’s characters address the audience directly, leading to proclamations about the play: “This story is not about kidneys,” we’re told in the first moments, “but about the human heart, the boundaries of the body, and the limits of love.” Thanks, but shouldn’t we be allowed to figure this out for ourselves? The play ends with the moral announced like in an overwritten children’s fable.           

The playwright also adds story twists that seem farfetched, if one accepts the surprises as realistic, or perhaps inevitable — if this is a telenovella. These tricks depend on characters reacting with all the wisdom and inner strength that Lou and Raina — both stubborn, whiney characters, difficult to like — lack. Here, such wisdom and strength is conveyed sincerely by Alice M. Gatling and Biko Eisen-Martin, and the five characters played between them.

Add to this a meet-cute romance for the often grating Raina, whose pettiness extends to a written list of her father’s plusses and minuses as she weighs saving his life, and the play’s identity crisis is easily diagnosed. It wants to be Margaret Edson’s Wit, which movingly deals with cancer, but seems too willing to coast at a superficial "Grey’s Anatomy" level.

Director Terrence Nolen’s production resembles Wit, with James Kronzer’s hospital set, lit in harsh institutional tones by Thom Weaver, a constant despite the many flashbacks and other locations. Under the Skin doesn’t probe deeply; despite its occasional discussion of bleak medical realities, it stays on its bubbly melodramatic surface.

Through March 15, $36 - 50, Arden Theatre Company, 20 N. 2nd St., 215-922-1122, ardentheatre.org.