The Concept

An undercurrent of dark humor runs throughout subUrbia, percolating up into the bleak, stifling reality of Burnfield, and the players' sincerity and total believability infuse the drama with warmth, passion and genuine hilarity. As the remorselessly evil antagonist Tim, Nicky Katt absolutely seethes hatred and bitterness, but the audience can't help but laugh at his hideously caustic venom and dark-as-hell aura (until, of course, it ceases to be funny and proceeds to terrify). Similarly, the grindingly terrible "performance art" that Sooze inflicts upon her friends (brilliantly executed by Amie Carey), along with Pony's abysmal attempts at pop-music, invoke the same sort of laugh-to-keep-from-screaming gut-reaction. Parker Posey is subtly fantastic as Erica, the leather-clad, cell-phone-grubbing embodiment of the L.A. "hot, hip" stereotype, while Steve Zahn, as the budding videographer and future cirrhosis patient of the bunch, delivers such a flawlessly plastered performance throughout, that unless he actually WAS drunk, he deserves an Oscar. And the prematurely-jaded rhetoric that Jeff spouts rings with a perfect mix of muddled logic and inspired clarity; overflowing with potential, but trapped by circumstance.

Perhaps the story's theme is best personified by Dina Spybey, who excels in the quiet, unobtrusive yet pivotal role of Bee-Bee. Overwhelmed by situations that we're only allowed to glimpse, consumed with dread and defeated by the seeming happiness, hopefulness, potential and success of those around her, Bee-Bee collapses beneath the weight of it all, and in her downfall, we see the cumulative effect that life in this concretized nether-world can have, and the razor's-edge on which all of these characters live.

But as Spybey notes, there is hope in even the darkest corners of subUrbia. "Everyone in their own way is trying to make themselves a better person," she says, and it is in that striving that meaning can be found. "That's what Bee-Bee is doing in the beginning - she's trying to better herself, to be a nurse, to help people. When that doesn't work for her she tries to find another way to escape, to ascend from this gray existence."

It's that perpetual tension between success and failure, contentment and despair that permeates subUrbia, challenging the characters to find their purpose, their calling, their reason to get out of bed in the morning. And for Jeff, our surrogate presence, it's also a matter of finding a way to cope without sacrificing those things that provide a sense of meaning.

"Jeff is trying to hang onto some of that idealism," Bogosian explains. "He's trying to find a way to be as idealistic as possible in an increasingly callow and commercial world."

Introduction € The Story € Background € The Players € The Concept