San Diego Reader

When he tries to recall his last 12 months, Nathan Miller (Daniel Rubiano) can't distinguish memory from mourning. His mother (Eva Barnes) was wrongly diagnosed with cervical cancer. His father (Dale Morris) suffered an economic heart attack - an IRS audit - then a real one. Plus, Nathan's girlfriend of four years became pregnant. As a mysterious, red-lit dancer (Robin Christ) hands him his black, marble-covered notebooks, Nathan relieves the year when he lost his sense of permanence. Questions flood the stage (even speculation about the Creator: "If God could make Dr. Phil," Nathan muses, "then God is fallible"). Nathan references Kierkegaard and Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor. Her approach characterizes much of the play. Thanks to a solid Vox Nova production (Ruff Yeager directing), the show has moving moments. But too often the characters intellectualize death and rarely feel loss and finality (illness as illness) on a mute, gutshot level for which no preparation is adequate.

June 10 through June 27