The first half of the play was comprised of very short flashes of encounters between “B” and “G”. The scenes were made jarring with snippets of moments followed by blackouts.  The scenes traced the original meeting of the two – – the girl climbing in B’s bedroom seeking sanctuary from her step dad – – to scenes that showed the plot they launch to create a fake marriage to insure B’s ability to stay in the country.  I had trouble with the snippets of scenes.  To me they didn’t allow me to get to know the two.  I wanted to care about them but each blackout drew me further and further away.  It got so hectic that I became more focused on how fast the actors where having to switch position and attitude on stage between one light fading out and the next fading in.  It became more of a game of physical prowess.

The second half of the show dropped the fast snippets and allowed more time to connect with the characters and the sacrifice that each character was to have to make to keep B in the country.  I loved the scenes when there were creating the history of their “pretend marriage” and how they had to fill in all of the details to convince a potential immigration office.  Here I found humor and made my best connection to the characters.

As the play drew to a conclusion a third character, Henry (given a full name likely because he was not an immigrant) provided a final wrinkle in the plan and set the three characters into a lover’s triangle – – one that insured that no one was going to win.  Love was going to require a sacrifice from each of them and – – they just weren’t willing to go there.