San Diego Reader

Like countless others, 17-year-old Dani feels she can be completely honest only on the Internet. Anonymity guarantees impunity. Dani recently spent two months at a clinic for eating disorders. She likes to help people who, like her, "need fixing." When she moves out of the chat room, she almost creates a similar openness with two men in the real world. Almost. She connects with Lewis, a nerdy virgin who still lives with his mother, and with Tim, mid-thirties, who had shock treatments for pedophilia. The irrepressible Dani bonds with Tim (both are in a freak show, she says, "on the same side of the bars") and becomes for a time his therapist-friend. But problems confessed on a keyboard can magnify when experienced firsthand, as Dani, her mother, and Lewis find out in Lucy Prebble's highly original comedy-drama. Once again, Moxie Theatre lives up to its name with a sharp production of a thought-provoking, surprisingly funny script. Amy Chini's set (steel gray, metallic walls and platforms) could be actual living spaces or the inside of a computer. The cast, directed by Jennifer Eve Thorn and wearing JoAnne Glover's apt costumes, all perform admirably: Jesse Allen Moore, fine comic relief as Lewis; Sean Cox, an eerie calm to his speeches, which walk two paths at once; Terri Park, as Dani's semi-ditzy mother (who, Park shows with skill, is far less experienced than her daughter; the playwright loves to invert traditional assumptions); and Rachael Van Wormer glows as Dani.

February 21 through March 8