Playwright: Joel Kim Booster. At: The New Colony at the Flatiron Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets: 773-413-0862; www.thenewcolony.org; $20. Runs through: Dec. 14
Kate Thomas and Sam Lewis play lovers in Ghost Hunter, a series of immensely popular young-adult novels and films. They are also a real-life couple, their every step publicized by Hollywood media for the consumption of envious adolescents, but lately, rumors have circulated that the duo may be separating. One day, Kate and Sam find themselves kidnapped by a pair of self-proclaimed fansBill, a thirtysomething recluse and, Becky, a teenage blogger who announces "Nine out of 11 therapists think I'm a sociopath!" long after we have already concluded this on our own. These celebrity-worshippers are bent on reuniting the objects of their adorationby force, if necessary.
You're not alone in suspecting that you've previously encountered this scenario. Joel Kim Booster's workshop-worn premise, while as serviceable as any for putting people in a room together, proceeds along likewise familiar lines: Kate and Sam squabble over an escape plan, bossy Becky bullies phlegmatic Bill, the inevitable gun makes its appearancecomplications leading us to wonder in what classroom this training exercise started its journey to the New Colony stage.
As it turns out, several. Kate and Sam Are Not Breaking Up is the product of collective input by author, director and performersa situation rather like that of the proverbial elephant and the six blind men, each focused on their immediate purview. This makes for considerable time devoted to expository details establishing the locale and characters before the action begins to travel in a recognizable direction to create the tension that comes only after the risks, and the stakes involved therein, have been identified.
You'd expect a show running a bare 90 minutes ( with an intermission ) to be honed to its last second of onstage time, but since its gestation process apparently excluded assessments of the overall dramatic arc, we are unable to believe that we are viewing anything but a board game for would-be playmakers. What we can believe, however, are the depths of calculation and compassion brought by the consistantly underrated Mary Williamson to Kate's stratagem securing her survival during the last 30 minutes of a comic-book thriller as artificial as the culture it proposes to criticize.