NO PLACE LIKE HOME

No Place Like Home
Or so Rob Torres would have us believe. He arrived with his suitcase – cheerful, confident, earnest. We liked him immediately, and happily followed him into the house he created out of masking tape, a rope, a hanger, a couple pieces of cloth, and whimsy.

But a house it remained .. never a home. This was a place without complication or resonance. A sunny universe where every problem was met with the same emotional value, and solved with the same ease and almost glib dismissal of its stakes. It reminded me of the slogan on my Republican brother-in-law’s potholders when he was running for re-election several years ago: “No problem too big to handle.”

I would have liked to see Rob have a problem that WAS too big to handle .. and the ensuing acknowledgement of it. Or at least an emotional investment in the solution! But nothing cost him. Nothing seemed to penetrate deeper than the temporary itch of a mosquito. So we as an audience ourselves came away itching .. for something a little deeper, richer .. something more akin to ‘home’.

This was a show that was for me more vaudevillian than clownesque .. a series of acts all of equal magnitude, all proficient and fun, all entertaining, but of little consequence. It was satisfying, but slight. And never surprising (except for the ladder which augured into the wall of the stage apron and elicited the biggest laugh of the evening.)

Rob is clearly a talented, accomplished actor. He has a warm, open presence and an easy rapport with the audience. I wonder what will happen when he tires of simple antics and anecdotes, and decides to take those skills into a more meaningful context.