Performing Arts

ADDISON – The battle of the sexes has been a dominant theme for more than a century of modern drama. Maybe it's time to give it a rest.

Nan Coulter / Special to DMN

Actors Mike Schraeder and Kristin McCollum rehearse Second Thought Theatre's Jack and Jill.

Second Thought Theatre is presenting Jane Martin's Jack and Jill in the Studio Theatre adjoining the space where WaterTower Theatre's bracing version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is running.

Maybe it's simply a result of seeing these plays two evenings in a row, but they could make you swear off dating (let alone anything more committed) forever.

In the latter piece, playwright Edward Albee explores the ferocious territory of implacable male-female enmity first mapped out by August Strindberg. Ms. Martin, whoever that mysterious pseudonym represents, follows a different tradition, the theme of the liberation and fulfillment of women that Henrik Ibsen laid out in A Doll's House . There are only two characters in Jack and Jill (though four other people roam around the stage moving props and helping with the endless costume changes). In the first scene, Jack approaches Jill at a library. In a mere 45 minutes, we see them court, get married, start quarreling and finally split up.

The second act keeps trying to glue the pieces of this busted relationship back together – perhaps Ms. Martin should have called the show Humpty Dumpty instead. Throughout the narrative, Jack is supportive but somewhat reserved. Jill keeps insisting that he share his feelings, but she's not sure she has any feelings at all, other than a suppressed anger and a desperate need to prove herself.

Jack and Jill keeps asking Freud's famous question, "What does a woman want?" Jill wants her space, but she also wants her space to feel not quite so empty. By the time Jill begins to figure out the answer, Jack has begun to lose patience – and so has the audience.

Second Thought's production, reviewed Saturday, looks stylish and is buoyed by Bob Hess' sound design. (Who would have thought that there are so many jazz treatments of nursery rhymes?) The two performers, Mike Schraeder and Kristin McCollum, are enormously skilled and put their all into the piece. They never quite convince us, though, of what brings the characters together in the first place.

Partly the fault lies with Mr. Schraeder. He works so hard at mining Jack's emotions that he tends to mug. Director Doug Miller should have edited the actor's work a bit. Ms. McCollum, line by line, is almost perfect. But we never feel the haughty sense of independence that is the backbone of the character.

•Through June 10 at the Studio Theatre, Addison Theatre and Conference Centre, 15650 Addison Road, Addison. Runs 110 mins. $20. 972-450-6232, www.secondthoughttheatre.com.