A career soldier returns home to Barstow, California, the desert town where his wife (Kalyne Coleman) and her cat wait impatiently, fending off a horny teenager, a sneaky coyote, and the moon itself. The homecoming isn’t a particularly joyful one as the couple quickly descends into bickering. Written after the Gulf War but pre-9/11, Jose Rivera’s play now might be more ominous now than it was when it premiered in 2000. The darker second act pokes into the mind of Benito (Ricardy Fabre), revealing unexpected traumas he won’t (or can’t) explore. The play itself is good but not great — the second act is too long, the magical realist elements don’t really go anywhere — but Tatyana-Marie Carlo’s direction is tight in this Brown/Trinity MFA production, and Coleman and Fabre both excel as a feisty couple whose youthful spark has been snuffed out by a decade of nomadic Army life.
There are two shows, a 2:30pm matinee and a 7:30 evening performance.
