Substitution
Description
Superheroes, May-September romance and grief mix unconvincingly in Anton Dudley’s exploration of how we move forward after the death of a loved one. Like Jenny Schwartz’s current God’s Ear, Substitution examines how words fail as we mourn, focusing on a woman (the excellent Jan Maxwell), who lost her teen son in a freak boating accident. But while Schwartz maintains a consistent tone of sad absurdism in her play, Dudley careens between metaphysical symbolism and made-for-TV bathos.—Andy Propst