Broken Thread

At first, Edwards’s new play shows potential to match the quality of a tolerable episode of Law & Order. At a police station, a high-profile defense attorney and his distraught wife are undergoing questioning about the disappearance of their six-year-old daughter from a shopping mall. A media circus is forming outside, both husband and wife seem to have secrets, and we sense thrills and mystery afoot.

But then the couple goes home, mystery moves to the back burner, and yelling comes to the fore. Edwards movingly depicts the pain, guilt and resentment that plague parents after the loss of a child, but she hobbles herself by spending way too much time developing a soap operatic love triangle involving the couple and their ever-present best friend. The relationship of these three ultimately becomes the central focus of the play, which, given the circumstances, seems a baffling case of misplaced priorities.

DeMone’s staging for Urban Theater Company has a clever set, designed by Alexis Vejar: Key pieces from the family’s home—the television, the vanished daughter’s bed—are missing but suggested by chalk outline. The production’s pacing drags, however, and the cast too often substitutes decibels for depth.

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