There Goes the “Neighborhood”

2nd Story Theater and director Ed Shea have crafted many provocative, funny, and clever plays over the years. Unfortunately, their latest, Neighborhood Watch, is a major disappointment.

Martin (Joe Henderson) and his uptight sister Hilda (Becky Minard) convene a meeting of concerned neighbors after a teenage boy invades their swanky property in the Bluebird Hill development. These include Dorothy (Lynne Collinson), a compulsive gossiper, and her rather dimwitted husband Rod (Jim Sullivan) who regales everyone with a tale of his stolen hedge trimmer, hapless Gareth (F. William Oakes) and his flirtatious wife Amy (Pamela Morgan), and music instructor Magda (Laura Sorensen) and her husband Luther (Wayne Kneeland). The group are terrified of hoodlums breaking into their homes and robbing them. When Martin’s garden gnome is ruined, the band of vigilantes launch an all-out war against the criminal vermin. Before long, huge fences have been erected all over the neighborhood, the residents all sport ID badges, and a stockade is put into operation to punish the guilty. There’s even a subcommittee assigned to punish people for immoral behavior!

The premise is intriguing and timely, evoking the murder of young Trayvon Martin by self-appointed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in 2011. Is anyone justified to take the law into their own hands? Unfortunately, playwright Alan Ayckbourn loses focus and throws in a misguided subplot about domestic abuse into the second act. There is also a romance that doesn’t go anywhere. There are other problems as well. The characters never learn anything from their appalling behavior. The plot doesn’t build, it just fizzles out.

Shea uses the theme song of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” at frequent intervals during the show for dramatic effect, but it doesn’t add much. The show doesn’t even look good: Trevor Elliott’s set is drab and lifeless.

Compared to the much more engaging The Rant, which also explores societal attitudes about crime and punishment, Neighborhood Watch ends up being a really big missed opportunity more than anything else.

Neighborhood Watch runs through December 6 at 2nd Story Theater, 28 Market Street, Warren. Online: www.2ndstorytheatre.com 
Box Office: 401-247-4200 
Email: boxoffice@2ndstorytheatre.com