I See You ***

I found much to admire in this new romantic comedy at the Flea Theater by Kate Robin, a writer on “Six Feet Under” and Showtime’s “The Affair.” The two characters are recognizable New York types. Nina (Danielle Slavick), a motor-mouthed neurotic obsessed with irreversible environmental degradation, would be a royal pain if she were not also a charmer. Jesse (Stephen Barker Turner), a laid-off teacher and stay-at-home dad, is a much calmer person who usually finds the bright side of any situation. They meet while watching their children play at the Children’s Museum. Opposites attract. We next see them in the waiting room of an I.C.U. (cf. the title), then at a New Age center in lower Manhattan when a Sandy-like storm hits, and later at the light show at the Children’s Museum. They are both changed for having met the other, but the durability of their relationship is an open question. The dialogue often sparkles and the actors are both appealing. By Flea standards, the production is lavish. The set design by Kyle Chepulis features a large turntable (which frankly seemed unnecessary) and the lighting design by Brian Aldous includes a brief light show worthy of a low-budget production of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-TIme.” Claudia Brown’s costumes are appropriate. There's also some high-powered piano playing by Or Matias. Jim Simpson’s direction is assured. Some might find the play too talky and tentative, but I found it offbeat and satisfying. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Future Anxiety **

Lauren Haines' satire at The Flea imagines a grim future in which environmental depredation has taken its toll and 12 billion people are competing for ever-diminishing resources. The Chinese import American debtors as slave labor. A woman who "collects" people for deportation to China is too ashamed to admit her occupation to her friends. People who chose cryogenics return to a world far worse than the one they left and must undergo two years of reorientation as wards of the state. A rapacious businessman scours the world for traces of vanished plant species. A poet softens the heart of a stern Chinese guard. A homeless man gives survival tips. A possibly crazed leader recruits followers to build a spaceship to travel to a new planet where they can start over -- and destroy a new environment. The various plot lines alternate in short scenes. 23 members of the Bats, the Flea's talented resident company of young actors, form the cast. The results are uneven and the whole is somehow less than its parts. The direction by Jim Simpson is fluid and the set by Kyle Chepulis makes good use of a small budget. The highlight for me actually took place before the play even started -- there is 15 minutes of weird vocalization by an uncredited male that is hysterically funny. Running time: 80 minutes.

P.S. Alas, there were more people in the cast than in the audience.