The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow

Jennifer Marcus (Tegan Jones) is 22, a scientific genius, an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder sufferer, an agoraphobic, Chinese born but adopted by an American couple and living in California.  She yearns to meet her biological mother, the mother whom she thinks must have rejected her.  But how can she find this mother when the woman is somewhere in China and Jennifer cannot leave the house – not even to take out the garbage?  Such is the dilemma which provides the narrative impetus for this family drama meets sci-fi play.  The play’s primary problem is that it lacks a unifying idea. 

Well, there is a unifying idea – Jennifer’s quest to find her ‘real’ mother. There’s also that of the over-achiever finding her place in the world.  There are the identity and self-esteem issues of an adopted kid, particularly one from another culture.  But devices and characters are expanded (indulged?) or satirised in passing for their own sake.  Playwright Rolin Jones is prodigal with his ideas, but then doesn’t quite know what to do with them.  The play’s title is indicative of the ideas: the ‘intelligent design’ is not a version of creationism but the design of a robot, ‘Jenny Chow’, created by our heroine.

Jennifer can’t go to China, so she builds this robot - a replica or stand-in for herself.  She needs funds and parts, so, operating out of her bedroom, she wangles a job re-designing obsolete missile guidance systems for the US military.  This, of course, points up the irony that her up-tight mother thinks Jennifer can’t even hold down a job at the mall - and it demonstrates Jennifer’s genius and her off-hand, almost dismissive attitude to it.  But the implications of ‘missile guidance systems’?  Not pursued.  So, really, it’s a plot device.

The plot device involves three additional characters: a vociferous Russian robotics professor, a USAF colonel and a scientific liaison guy - all of them played hilariously and with great brio by Sam Lavery.  That’s in addition to Mr Lavery’s even funnier Mormon missionary in China, a febrile guy with a premature ejaculation problem.  He tracks down Jennifer’s Chinese mother in exchange for pix of Jennifer naked.  Are you keeping up?  Lest anyone think, by the way, that this doubling up is a budget measure, it’s been the practice in previous productions so we have to assume it’s all Mr Jones’ intention.

Angelique Malcolm and Lawrie Fields, who play Jennifer’s American step-parents, also do some doubling.  By instinct or design they opt for a sort of cartoon or sit-com style that leaches out credibility.  It also creates problems, particularly for Ms Malcolm, when she must switch the tone to genuine emotion and a guilty confession – and then on top of that play the dual role of Jennifer’s biological Chinese-speaking mother – which she handles well. 

Robby Favretto, however, does a superb and laugh-out-loud turn as a stoner pizza delivery guy, Jennifer’s sort of boyfriend – proving in his performance that you don’t have to be smart to have a good heart.  He takes the audience from laughter to lump-in-the-throat.  Mr Favretto will go far.

The play really finds its strength when subsidiary characters drop away and Jennifer’s robot – and alter ego and surrogate self and even daughter, ‘Jenny Chow’ – is invented and begins to speak.  As Jenny Chow, Kim Ko is just about perfect: convincingly robotic with that faint air of menace cyborgs with a limited emotional range have, but, ironically, programmed with enough emotion to be convincingly hurt and bewildered when Jennifer turns against her.  When she says, ‘I can fly’ – which she can do but her creator cannot – it is devastating for Jennifer and a visceral jolt for the audience.

Tegan Jones as Jennifer must carry the real burden of this uneven piece.  She must convey slabs of narrative in monologues, convince us of her OCD and agoraphobia – and her genius – and, most difficult of all, convey the mood swings of a child – twenty-two or not – who is sure she is not loved and is not loveable.  On opening night, Ms Jones was still having trouble with the words, so perhaps she will settle into this demanding role and bring to it more of the light and shade the character needs, more tonal variation.  We don’t have to like Jennifer, but we have to care about her.

Playwright Rolin Jones, free in 2003 before submitting to the constraints of series television (he has many prestigious credits), throws too much into his mix.  Pulitzer Prize nomination or not, Jenny Chow marks time and repeats itself.  It would benefit from losing maybe ten to fifteen minutes running time and from finding an ending that is less abrupt and more emotionally clear.  If this particular production has some problems, we can sheet much of them home to the text.

It is the kind of show that might work better than it does here with a very sure hand at the helm and greater resources.  The Brunswick Artspace is a very small venue.  The set design makes it smaller: the players are almost on top of the audience.  Is it always a good idea to have two directors – Emma Caldwell and Samantha Cunningham?  Are they are at cross purposes?  All that said, you have to admire the Boutique Theatre’s chutzpah in presenting this difficult beast – as this company’s choices to date have been similarly courageous.  There are reasons to see this show, despite its problems; it may be overloaded and unfocussed, but it’s provocative and entertaining.

Michael Brindley

Image: (L-R):  Lawrie Fildes and Tegan Jones. Photographer: Samantha Cunningham