The details of several tragedies unfold in intertwined scenes in Brandon Ferraro’s Quiet Peninsula. First, we find ourselves in a local bar and witness a tense, emotionally charged discussion between Jess and Lauraine, a pair of Detroit police officers (with subtle Yooper accents) hashing out an investigation that went wrong and resulted in the shooting of an unarmed teenager. The play then shifts to a man’s conversation with his unresponsive, seemingly senile father at a nursing home. Ferraro gives an impressive performance as the son, who confronts his dad about being suddenly removed from his will, possibly due to animosity from a drunk-driving incident, years ago, that left his father impaired. The final scene brings us to an office, where a college-basketball star is questioned about his whereabouts at the time of an alleged rape. We come to realize that the scenes take place simultaneously on a single evening and that several of the characters are connected by blood, marriage or otherwise—too coincidentally to be believable. The stories address injustices and guilt in various walks of life. (With its dark parallel to recent headlines, the shooting plotline distracts from the rest.) But their interconnections seem irrelevant to the tragic events described, so the larger picture says nothing more than its individual parts. In the end, we’re left with no epiphanies, just a feeling of melancholy.—Hannah Doolin
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