The Flowers

BACKSTAGE GAS Reed, left, and Sprunger rev their engines.

In the opening scene of Bock’s intimate, intriguing new work, a college lecturer quotes from Lewis Hyde’s 1979 book The Gift, in which the scholar posited that creatives are hindered by a market economy but thrive in a gift economy, one in which something is offered with the expectation of trade rather than commodification.

That this scene turns out to be a metatheatrical false start—part of a play within the play, staged by the titular small-town theater troupe—does nothing to diminish the import of Bock’s invocation. His play concerns the erosion of the Flowers as a found family, spurred by the clash within the gay couple at its helm: One man (Bruch Reed) is so devoted to the safe, insular group he’s fostered that he’s willing time and again to toss aside his own work (including that play-within) for another crowd-pleasing R&J revival; his long-term partner (Benjamin Sprunger) feels claustrophobic and longs for new frontiers.

This tension between the need to give back to the community that’s fueled you and the pitfall of walling yourself off inside a ghetto—gay, artistic or familial—seems to be at the heart of Bock’s question. It remains unanswered, but it’s addressed thoughtfully and engagingly in Cullman’s production, which makes smart use of the playwright’s co-opting of theater clichés (the talk-back, the audition, an extended scene from Shakespeare) to illustrate the dilemma. Reed’s detailed, lived-in performance as a put-upon artist provides an anchor that’s appropriately both solid and unsure.

• More theater reviews
• More Theater articles