Performing Arts

There's a new generation of playwrights in the land. If you thought experimental drama was weird before, just wait.

Undermain Theatre gave us the regional premiere of The Appeal by Korean-born, American-raised playwright Young Jean Lee on Saturday. Random, self-obsessed, ironic – words can't even begin to convey how odd it is.

It's frequently laugh-out-loud funny, too. And under Katherine Owens' direction, Undermain gives it an assured, even luxurious production.

All four characters in The Appeal are famous personages from British literary history. In the first act, William Wordsworth (Shelby Davenport) and his sister, Dorothy (Shannon Kearns-Simmons), go on mountain hikes with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Kent Williams). Wordsworth and Coleridge have a falling out about the definition of poetry – or is it about the difference between fancy and the imagination? Dorothy tries to patch things up, but she has so many resentments over being ignored by the men that she erupts with her own theories of consciousness.

The second act takes place in a castle in the Alps owned by Lord Byron (Todd Haberkorn). At first just the Wordsworths are visiting, then somehow Coleridge appears on the scene, too. Byron spends most of his time worrying whether the others will think he is crazy. A lot of sherry is imbibed.

Don't imagine that The Appeal is any kind of history play, though. Sometimes the characters speak in startlingly contemporary ways. At others, they seem like cartoon figures in a children's book about the Romantic poets. Mr. Davenport takes a break to explain the historical background and winds up explaining nothing.

Two of the most entertaining scenes are wordless: In the first, the characters take opium and twirl around until they pass out, and in the second Byron and Dorothy get down in what hilariously begins like Riverdance and ends up like hip-hop.

You can understand why an avant-garde 21st-century writer would be thinking about these 200-year-old poets. Wordsworth can seem old-fashioned today, but he was the first to try to document what consciousness feels like.

There might not have been any rock 'n' roll yet, but these folks knew all about sex and drugs, however respectable the older generation of Romantics became. And artists of all eras vie for attention and quarrel and put one another down and talk, talk, talk.

All four performers are terrific, but the show belongs to Mr. Davenport and Ms. Kearns-Simmons. He can utter inanities with the authority of an oracle. She's a mass of hostility barely under control. In several scenes, each of them has facial reactions so amusing you can't keep your eyes from bouncing back and forth, as if you were watching a tennis match.

The Appeal is a yardstick measuring just how cool its audience is. If you don't get it, no one needs to know. Just laugh along with the crowd, and smile on your way out.

Through May 19 at Undermain Theatre, 3200 Main St. Runs 70 mins. $15 to $25. 214-747-5515; www.undermain.com.