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"A riveting edge-of-the-seat affair shot through
with sex, violence and narrative thrills. Hiding Behind Comets
will show up again somewhere soon and it will sell a lot of tickets."
Chris Jones, Variety (Cincinnati Playhouse production)
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"Hands down ONE OF THE FINEST NEW PLAYS
OF THE SEASON, this edgy suspense drama is both a superb
ghost story and a joltingly subversive study of human politics. GO
SEE IT…I love this play."
Martin Denton, NYTheatre.com (NYTheatre Pick)
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the full review
 Description
Although twin brother and sister, Troy and Honey,
share an unusually strong bond, they seem as different as night and
day. One late summer evening, a stranger wanders into their family-owned
bar. When he starts asking personal questions, it soon becomes clear
that his visit to this small-town dive has not been purely coincidental.
The extent of his journey, it’s underlying motivation and the
past horrors that have directed it provide a roller coaster of surprises
that keep audiences on the edge of their seat until the plays final
moments. click the photo at
right to view more from the Cincinnati in the Playhouse production.
Character Breakdown
2 Men, 2 Women
History
Productions
World Premiere
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (Cincinnati, Ohio) Michael Haney,
Director
New York Premiere
29th Street Rep, David Mogentale, Director
Regional Productions
Zeitgeist Stage Company (Boston, MA), David J Miller, Director
Birmingham Theatre Festival (Birmingham, Alabama), Stephen French, Director
 Workshop Production
World Premiere Theatre (Eureka, California) Desmond Mosley, Director
Readings
Arizona Theatre Company (Tucson, AZ)
Access Theater (NYC)
Blue Heron, Subjective Theater Company (NYC)
Press
 “Tense
barroom thriller… Sexually charged… Fiery… Mesmerizing… Riveting”
Marilyn Stasio, Variety
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"SWEATY-PALMED suspense…a lean, predatory production... DON'T MISS THIS LITTLE SYMPHONY OF SAVAGERY "
New York Sun
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A side of America darker than baseball, apple pie, and Satanic manipulation is on view in Hiding Behind Comets!"
Carolyn Clay, Boston Phoenix
more
"The play has stayed with me longer than most works ... Dykstra knows how to deliver jolts in both plot and theme…Dykstra is a writer to watch."
Ed Siegel, The Boston Globe
"To ticket-buyers who reveled in Killer Joe as well as in Letts' Bug, Dykstra's SPEEDING-ON-SHEER-NERVE melodrama ought to satisfy any craving for new shocks. The piece incorporates the kind of TWISTED TWISTS that had patrons in my row GASPING as the theatrical pedal was pressed to the metal. . . As Cole, Dan Moran could SCARE THE PANTS OFF AL CAPONE."
David Finkle, Theatermania.com
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"A truly HARROWING and THOUGHT-PROVOKING play, the kind that GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN and continues to pester your soul for days after the house lights come up. Cases are made, issues are debated, and as in true life, there is no right answer. That, perhaps, is the most terrifying aspect of all."
Broadwayworld.com
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"A TENSE PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER… Dykstra is a writer with a lot on his mind...If you want a show about apple-pie American siblings, better head uptown and buy a ticket for Little Women."
Curtain Up
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" Dykstra 's CRACKLING variation on 'So, This Guy Walks Into a Bar...'
AmericanTheaterweb.com
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"a masterly evening of suspense... Dykstra achieves
commanding insights into the characters....It is Dykstra's talent
for writing dialogue-now slicing, now vulgar, now sardonic-that provides
exciting sparring...There are fascinating explorations, notably
the strange symbiotic emotional and physical connections that the twins
have for one another...There are also substantive contemplations
on larger themes: the manipulation of minds through the perversion
of faith, the twisted rationale that extended guilt can cause and
the unsettling effects on children when they are deprived of truth."
Cincinnati Post
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full review
“a roller coaster of events that keep patrons on the edge of
their seats until the very end.”
The News Record
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Best of 2003: Theater
But others have been edgy works that made audiences — and apparently
the Rosenthals — squirm. For instance, Angus MacLachaln's The Dead
Eye Boy (2000) told a tale of domestic violence and child murder; this
season's new play selection, Hiding Behind Comets by Brian Dykstra
(March 20-April 18, 2004), led to the Rosenthals' decision to stop
funding the prize.
"Because of a lack of enthusiasm for this year's selection, we
have chose to discontinue the prize," the Rosenthals said in a
prepared statement. Indicating a desire to avoid "awkward situations" in
the future, they added, "We have decided to discontinue the Rosenthal
New Play Prize and instead work to find other vehicles in which we
can continue our support of the Playhouse."
Stern is undaunted, saying the Playhouse will continue to stage new
works.
"If American regional theater doesn't develop new materials,
it really won't happen," he says. "Regional theater is the
touchstone of new theater development." read
more
More press
About: Hiding Behind Comets
No hiding the pain
'Hiding Behind Comets' makes its world premiere at Playhouse
by Tabari McCoy, CinWeekly
“Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park associate artistic
director Michael Evan Haney says to consider yourself warned if you
plan on attending a performance of Hiding Behind Comets:
" Be prepared to hold onto your hats."
“Running through Sunday, April 18, Hiding Behind
Comets is the name of actor-turned-playwright Brian Dykstra's new play,
which made its world premiere at the Playhouse earlier this month.
A drama centering around the interaction of four characters in the
middle of nowhere, Comets is not what one could consider a "standard" production
by any means.”
read
more
Playhouse in the Park introduces you to survivors
of the Jonestown Massacre
Kendra Leonard, AroundCinci.com
“…Hiding Behind Comets is a well-constructed,
tightly wound drama with a plausible but edgy twists to keep the audience
completely fixed on the unfolding story until the very last moments
of the performance. For Cincinnati's more sophisticated arts crowd,
it will be an outstanding hit.”
read
more
Rough-hewn 'Comets' invades Playhouse
Jerry Stein, Cincinnati Post
“…The writer of "Hiding Behind Comets," a
new play having its premiere tonight at the Cincinnati Playhouse in
the Park, doesn't hide behind heavenly lights or much of anything --
especially controversy.”
read
more
Biggest jaw-dropper - The surprise announcement in mid-September
that arts patrons Lois and Richard Rosenthal were ending their long-time
association with the new play prize at Cincinnati Playhouse in the
Park. What would have been the 16th winner, Hiding Behind Comets by
Brian Dykstra, was clearly a bone of contention. We'll find out why
when it has its world premiere at Playhouse in March. read
more
City Beat (Cincinnati)
The Elements of Great Theater
Cincinnati Playhouse makes a splash
with its commitment to cutting-edge plays
by Rick Pender
Full Reviews
Hiding Behind Comets
A 29th Street Rep and Darren Lee Cole
presentation of a play in two
acts by Brian Dykstra.
Directed by David Mogentale.
Erin - Amber Gallery
Troy - Robert Mollohan
Honey - Moira MacDonald
Cole - Dan Moran
By MARILYN STASIO
The 29th Street Rep is a ballsy company that offers auds a chance
to walk on the wild side. Its plays steam with cheap sex, dirty dialogue
and blunt-force violence; it works in an edgy ensemble style that hangs
tough and looks dangerous. And according to the kick-ass T-shirts on
sale in the lobby, it takes great pride in being a place "where
brutal theater lives." Brian Dykstra's tense barroom thriller
fits the company bill with its sexually charged atmosphere and morbid
B-movie plot about a mysterious stranger who walks into a barroom with
a bizarre story and a violent agenda.
So this Guy Walks Into A Bar and ... No, you haven't heard this one
before. Neither has Troy (Robert Mollohan), the young bartender waiting
for his last customer to leave so he and his twin sister, Honey (Moira
MacDonald), can call it a night at their father's tavern and cruise
their Northern California hick town for livelier entertainment.
Troy's girlfriend, the pretty, vacant blonde Erin (Amber Gallery),
contributes to the tension of this waiting game by humping the vintage
jukebox (well stocked by Tim Cramer) in sexual anticipation.
Douglas Cox's murky lighting and the junkyard quality of Mark Symczak's
barroom decor are proper eye irritants for this tired roadhouse in
the middle of nowhere. Only the young people look out of place, with
their bottled-up energy and defiantly punk clothes. Troy is good-natured
about pulling the night shift, but Honey is a bundle of nerves, the
loose cannon in the crowd. In MacDonald's fiery perf , Honey is such
a hellion, she might torch the place out of sheer boredom.
Dykstra intensifies the hormonal energy bouncing off the walls by
giving Honey an unhealthy sexual itch for her twin and a rich vocabulary
to vent her frustration. (Honey's filthy mouth obviously contributed
to the overall "content, graphic language and sexuality" that
caused the play to lose its funding when it was first produced at the
Cincinnati Playhouse.)
Although Troy remains entirely oblivious to the situation, it seems
Honey has been pimping her friends to her brother. "Listen, bitch," she
snarls at him. "I'm trying to get the both of you laid, because
that's all you really care about tonight, anyway." Indeed, Honey
is so attuned to Troy's body chemistry that she has a spontaneous orgasm
at the bar while he's boffing Erin in the storeroom.
The dynamic shifts dramatically once the creepy customer nursing
his drink at a back table lets it be known that he has a personal interest
in the twins. To make a long story short (and Dykstra does tend to
stretch it out), the mysterious Cole has reason to believe they may
be his own offspring -- either that, or the tainted progeny of Jim
Jones, the cult preacher who infamously orchestrated the deaths of
more than 900 people at Jonestown in 1978.
It turns out that Cole was at Jonestown and, in a mesmerizing perf
by Dan Moran, he stuns his listeners with a horrific account of his
role as one of Jones' trusted henchmen. Taking it beyond the riveting
storytelling, Moran offers a fierce accounting of Cole's everlasting
season in hell.
Pinning the twins to the wall with his twisted logic and ferocious
rage, he forces them to consider the genetic roots of evil and puts
them to sadistic tests to determine their paternity. It's a dangerous
performance, but Dykstra keeps the character just this side of crazy,
and Moran never jumps the boundary.
Even in David Mogentale's taut production (an impressive helming
debut from this company actor), the show is by no means a slam-dunk.
The title is too abstract for such visceral material, and the sadistic
trials devised by Cole could be sharper and more definitive. But in
a slightly trimmer version -- and without the intermission -- this
nasty thing could offend quite a few people.
Set, Mark Symczak; lighting, Douglas Cox; sound, Tim Cramer; graphics,
Orianne Cosentino; fight coordinator, J. David Brimmer; production
stage manager, Walter Guzman. Opened Feb. 17, 2005 . Reviewed Feb.
13. Running time: 1 HOUR, 45 MIN.
Dan Moran may or may not be Moira MacDonald's father in Brian Dykstra's
Hiding Behind Comets, directed by David Mogentale at the 29th Street
Rep.
Date in print: Thurs., Feb. 17, 2005 , Gotham
Hiding
Behind Comets
A Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park presentation of
a play in two acts by Brian Dykstra .
Directed by Michael Evan Haney.
Troy - Christian Conn
Honey - Jacqueline Van Biene
Erin - Erica Schroeder
Cole - Dan Moran
 For
the past 15 years or so, the Rosenthal family has sponsored a new-play
award in Cincy that has sent a bevy of fine scripts — from "The
Dead-Eyed Boy" to "Coyote on the Fence" — to Off
Broadway and the regional circuit. But the Rosenthals pulled their
funding after reading this new play, an intensely sexual preem that
depicts the strange connections between twentysomething twins and a
survivor of the Jonestown massacre who may or may not be their father.
Granted, this is no family treat. But there' s
no territory exposed here that Tracy Letts or Canadian bad-boy Brad
Fraser didn't already plow in the 1990s — in Cincinnati, at that. "Hiding
Behind Comets" has some contrivances, and is far from subtle,
especially in Michael Evan Haney's flashy production. But it's a riveting,
edge-of-the-seat affair shot through with sex, violence, narrative
thrills and a smart, engaging premise.
Set entirely in a bar in a California nowheresville
town, the four-hander introduces Troy (Christian Conn) and Honey (Jacqueline
Van Biene), fraternal twins who tend a family-owned tavern.
A menacing middle-aged stranger named Cole (Dan
Moran) wanders into the bar and, after a little banter with Honey,
figures out the twins' unusual relationship: Honey gets her kicks by
enticing her friends to sleep with her brother. While Troy gets it
on in the storeroom downstairs, Honey has a spontaneous orgasm in front
of Cole. He goes on to reveal that he was in Jonestown for the infamous
grape Kool-Aid massacre.
As the night drags on, Cole adds that he knew the
twins' mother. He got her out of Jonestown before the final nastiness.
Now Cole (played with intentional semi-psychotic ambivalence by Dan
Moran) has come to find out if the twins are his own progeny or that
of loopy cult leader Jim Jones. If they belong to Jones, he intends
to kill them, lest they turn out to be nuts themselves. If they belong
to him, he plans to disappear.
Thanks in no small measure to Dysktra's ability
to parse the plot twists deftly, it's more convincing than it sounds.
It's also intriguing, with underpinnings that explore cult behavior
and the idea of kids inheriting the sins and inclinations of their
parents.
Excursions into Jonestown flashbacks come just
as the play threatens to dissolve into barroom standard issue. The
language walks a fine line between theatrical stylization and naturalism.
There are daring, on-the-edge performances to enjoy,
especially the terrific Biene and Conn as the twins whose interlaced
worlds get thoroughly rocked.
Featuring loud f/x, a tricks-laden set from Kevin
Rigdon and intensely theatrical lighting from David Lander ("I
Am My Own Wife"), Haney's production sometimes overplays its hand.
But this isn't the show to shy away from the dark games of theater. "Hiding
Behind Comets" will show up again somewhere soon, and it will
sell a lot of tickets.
Sets, Kevin Rigdon; costumes, Gordon DeVinney;
lighting, David Lander; sound, Chuck Hatcher; production stage manager,
Suann Pollock. Artistic director, Ed Stern. Opened March 25, 2004 .
Reviewed April 15. Running time: 1 HOUR, 50 MIN.
Chris Jones, Variety (Cincinnati Playhouse
production)
New York Sun
29th Street Rep has staked out their territory, marked it, and now
does a a nice job of defending it. Preferring adrenalized action-drama,
the bloodier , the better, the company's tiny space had hosted a number
of ugly bust-ups and brutal confessions. With Brian Dykstra 's "Hiding
Behind Comets," the bring sweaty-palmed suspense back the the
stage. In a lean, predatory production, the Rep succeeds in a
very macho counterprogramming ploy for a month burdened with Valentine's
Day.
Mr. Dykstra spins a tight web of suspense out of a narrow premise. On
a lonely night near closing time, a stranger walks into a bar. The
22-year old twins Honey (husky-voiced Moira MacDonald) and Troy (Robert
Mollohan) are fighting about when to close up, bickering over Honey's
friend Erin (Amber Gallery), and finishing each other's sentences. Observing
them, the stranger Cole (Dan Moran) coaxes new heights of sexual fran
kness out of Honey and depths of anger out of Tory, but he does it
all in the pursuit of a dangerous game of this own.
Much of the play's pleasure lies in its startling twists and angry
little jabs of revelation, so more plot would ruin its rush. First-time
director David Mogentale has a killer instinct with the material--he
plumbs his own experience as an accomplished portrayer of murderers. Keeping
his cast lethally primed for action at all times, he managers to milk
the last drop out of dreadful anticipation out of Dykstra 's script.
It helps that his company has such ease portraying physical menace. Mr.
Moran has a weird blankness about him that means everything he does
comes as a surprise, while the twins entwine so tightly it's hard to
sort them out, one from the other. Don't miss this little symphony
of savagery, but don't eat immediately before it, either.
"To ticket-buyers who reveled in Killer Joe as well
as in Letts' Bug, Dykstra 's SPEEDING-ON-SHEER-NERVE melodrama
ought to satisfy any craving for new shocks...the kind of TWISTED
TWISTS that had patrons in my row GASPING as
the theatrical pedal was pressed to the metalŠAs Cole, Dan Moran
could SCARE THE PANTS OFF AL CAPONE."
David Finkle, Theatermania.com
read
the full review
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