Leave it to “a wild and crazy guy” like Steve Martin to write a wild and crazy play like Meteor Shower, the deliciously quirky, stealthily surreal hour-long gem now tickling audiences at San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre.

Though hardly the first play to feature two married couples meeting for the first time (Yasmina Reza’s God Of Carnage comes immediately to mind), there’s never been one quite like Meteor Shower, which not only plays games with time (Martin keeps serving up flashbacks to fill in moments previously skipped over) but also with reality itself.

Things start out relatively straightforwardly, if admittedly on the oddball side, as Martin introduces us to 30somethings Norm (Jonathan Fisher) and Corky (Dana DeRuyck) as they await the arrival of Norm’s tennis buddy Gerald (Ryan Knight) and Gerald’s ex-Vogue editor wife Laura (Analeis Anderson).

Prompting the second couple’s visit is tonight’s much heralded meteor shower, virtually invisible from Gerald and Laura’s Santa Barbara home but about to light up the night sky above Norm and Corky’s Ojai abode.

Though we’ve yet to discover what kind of a couple Gerald and Laura are, it’s clear from the get-go that their soon-to-be hosts have honed their own communication skills to hilarious perfection.

(When a casual remark rubs Corky the wrong way and she reminds Norm that her feelings “are not playthings,” he offers back a reassuring “I hope that you understand that I did not intend to hurt you, and I will try to use that particularly joking manner less often.” And you can’t get more evolved than that.)

Playwright Martin then skips past Gerald and Laura’s arrival to join the two couples mid-chitchat as Gerald explains to the others that “meteors represent the conjunction of two very different worlds,” akin to the chaos that ensues when mountain bugs and costal bugs meet and mingle chaotically in what scientists call the “bug flux,” and similar to what’s about to transpire when coastal couple visits mountain couple up Ojai way.

Corky certainly doesn’t appreciate it when Laura refers to Norm’s and her home as “exactly what we need. A little nothing out in the country,” and she certainly can’t help wondering whether their guests are exactly who they say they are given Laura’s claim to have worked in “uptown” Los Angeles when (as Corky correctly reminds her) “there is no uptown in L.A.”

Meteor Shower then flashes back to before Gerald and Laura’s arrival, and then once again forward to the two couples’ how-do-you-dos, Gerald ostentatiously gifting his hosts with a bottle of Santa Barbara’s best $80 wine, at which point audience members can be excused for assuming that a simple back-and-forth in time is about all Steve Martin has up his sleeve.

Wrong, because things are about to get very, very strange, as scenes we’ve already witnessed get replayed with entirely new dialog and results.

Not only that, but just wait till the meteors actually begin showering down and Martin’s play takes a decidedly surreal turn I simply didn’t see coming.

Clocking in at a mere sixty minutes almost to the second, Martin’s 2016 theatrical bonbon may not merit full-length play status, but hey, you’ll get home from Little Fish an hour or so earlier than usual and just in time for an episode of your latest Netflix binge.

Director Stephanie Coltrin sprinkles in inspired bits of business throughout the hour, and though Meteor Shower’s first two incarnations may have featured bigger name performers than Little Fish’s intimate staging (The Office’s Jenna Fischer originated Corky at the Old Globe and Amy Shumer played her on Broadway), casts don’t get any more talent-blessed than DeRuyck (a snappy-patter delight), Fisher (an affable, goofy charmer), Anderson (glamourous, acerbic perfection), and Knight (simply oozing cocky appeal).

Adding to the magic on Christopher Beyries’ gorgeous living room/patio set (meticulously appointed with Bouket Fingerhut’s props by set decorators Tara Donovan, Coltrin, and Evelyn Pham) are James Callaghan’s stunningly beautiful starry, starry night lighting design, Jessie Vacchiano’s planetarium-ready animated projections and her pop song-and-extraterrestrial underscoring-enhanced sound design, and Michael Mullen’s costumes and Alex Choate’s special effects are pretty darn nifty too.

Jen Albert is intimacy director. Alexa Wolfe is stage manager.

It may have taken seven long years for Steve Martin’s 2016 confection to make it from its San Diego to Los Angeles, but the good news is this. Its terrifically entertainig Little Fish Theatre debut makes this particular Meteor Shower more than worth the wait.

Little Fish Theatre, 777 Centre St. San Pedro.
www.littlefishtheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
November 24, 2023
Photos: Mickey Elliiot

Tags: Little Fish Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Steve Martin