A pregnant woman is visited nightly by the Stevie Nicks-loving adult ghost of her as yet unborn child in Hungry Ghost, Lisa Sanaye Dring’s surreal, supernatural head-scratcher of a play now getting its Skylight Theatre Company World Premiere.

The play starts off entertainingly enough with Asian-American Dean (Jenny Soo) and her Caucasian wife Amanda (Tasha Ames) arriving to take possession of the family home left to Dean by a just-deceased mother who “didn’t update her affairs to match her disdain” (presumably for what she’d have referred to as her daughter’s “lesbian lifestyle.”)

And though the idea of setting up house there is fine and dandy as far as Amanda is concerned, Dean is (to put it lightly) ambivalent about the move, though it would be nice to have the space for the child Dean will soon be conceiving thanks to a helpful male friend’s donated sperm.

There’s also the pesky matter of the hermit said to be living somewhere in the surrounding woods, and it doesn’t take long for said hermit to break in after the wives have gone to bed, open a few cupboards, swipe a handful of cereal to munch on, and leave behind quite a mess.

Things get wacko when the hermit reveals himself to be Dean’s bearded, bald, decidedly not Asian, 40something son, whose presence (unseen by Amanda) may either be entirely real or a conjured-up figment of Dean’s imagination. (The fact that Amanda can’t see or hear him, or notice the steadily increasing havoc he’s wreaking on walls, cupboards, and furniture suggests the latter.)

Whatever playwright Dring is going for must make sense to her (and presumably to director Jessica Hanna and cast members Ames, Messmer, and Soo), but whatever that sense is eluded me.

To be fair to all concerned, many in the Opening Night audience did respond to the onstage shenanigans with enthusiastic laughter.

Still, I wasn’t the only one who sat stone-faced throughout most of the show, that is when I wasn’t glancing at my watch to see how much more of this supernatural psychological gobbledygook I’d have to sit through.

Had I responded more positively to the final entry in Skylight Theatre Company’s 2022-2023 “Her Vision, Her Voice” season, I’d likely have responded more enthusiastically to Hanna’s direction and the performances she’s elicited from her cast, all four doing topnotch work.

I might also be telling you that Yuri Okahana-Benson’s spectacularly morphing set and the mood-and-suspense-enhancing contributions of lighting designer Brandon Baruch, video designer Nicholas Santiago, sound designer Joseph “Sloe” Slawinski, illusion designers Sean Cawelti and Morgan Rebane, and costume designer Mylette Nora were worth the price of admission, but then you’d have to sit through the show.

Hungry Ghost is produced by Gary Grossman. Tyree Marshall is associate producer. Ariana Michel is stage manager. Casting is by Victoria Hoffman.

There’s probably an audience out there for Hungry Ghost, folks who’ll figure out what on earth Lisa Sanaye Dring is going for and stand up and cheer. Just don’t count me as one of them.

Skylight Theatre, 1816 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.
www.skylighttheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
August 26, 2023
Photos: Grettel Cortes

Tags: Lisa Sanaye Dring, Los Angeles Theater Review, Skylight Theatre Company