Continuity
Bess Wohl
Shotgun Players
A movie about climate change that is supposed to be taking place on an iceberg in the Arctic is in the midst of shooting time and again one scene on a styrofoam berg in the heat of a New Mexico desert — a location decision made by a studio drawn there by tax incentives. The script, already rewritten many times with much of the climate message now being cut and replaced with a exaggerated disaster plot, is just one of many aspects of moviemaking that Bess Wohl’s Continuity — now on stage at Shotgun Players — satirizes. However, unlike the nonstop hilarity of The Play That Goes Wrong that similarly pokes fun at putting on a live play, Continuity is at best mildly amusing with an over-reliance on stereotypical characters and a storyline that fails to engage an audience enough to really care what happens in the end.
The issue, in my opinion, is with the script and not with the Shotgun production per se. The cast of eight under the direction of Emile Whelan give it their best shot, and each has moments in which their acting prowess has a chance to shine. But it is what the script calls upon them to do that too often leads to scenes that are only blandly interesting, are head scratchers why included, or are an overly long segment on some scientific technicalities.
After a few art-house documentaries, Maria (Rezan Asfaw) is directing her first big-budget, Hollywood film; but the movie she signed on to is not that one she is now desperately trying to make a success. She got here because the celebrated screenwriter, David Caxton (Benoít Monin), is her ex who wanted to give her a chance for the big time.
The idea for the film came from the film’s international starlet, Nicole (Regina Morones), who had a whim to be in a movie about climate change. Caxton saw it as a chance to get her into his next movie, convincing a big studio to let him make the movie in order to sign her up. But now, they are stuck in a desert where everyone is about to faint in their heavy parka costumes with a script that has a terrorist wanting to blow up an iceberg to destroy the West Coast and kill millions and with a coke-snorting star who keeps demanding script and hair-do changes mid-scene.
The chaos has potential for much hilarity but is too often thwarted by the reliance on too-predictable, too-overused characterizations and situations. Of course the past relationship of the director and the writer is going to resurface issues between them — a LaLa writer who is at times more interested in his tanned look and talking about his yoga class than on the moviemaking at hand. At the same time, he’s making eyes (and getting in bed) with the hot starlet, who surprise, surprise, announces she is pregnant (just not with him). You saw all that coming, right?
And the glam star who is on drugs, who bats her eyelids and puckers her lips looking for the next compliment from anyone nearby, and who seems oblivious that her demands for a Diet Dr. Pepper and a boiled egg becomes the Number One thing she expects accomplished while an entire crew is doing all they can to finish a shoot while the light is still good — haven’t we seen all this before time and again? Is it any surprise she will overtake the stage in a coked-up frenzy that is frankly not even that funny to watch?
Then we have the gym-bunny actor with an attention span of thirty-seconds, Jake (Nicholas René Rodriguez), whose goal seems to mirror as much as he can the bad boy (a terrorist scientist) he plays in the movie. His presence and general attitude is also quite recognizable and foreseeable.
A bit more nuanced is the inclusion of a classical, English actress of Nigerian heritage, Lily (Ice Success), who is playing a doomed scientist. She keeps being told by Maria to tone down her acting when already she is saying nothing and hardly doing a thing in the scene being shot over and again.
The movie’s climate consultant, Larry (Malcolm Rodgers), keeps showing up to interrupt the screening with increasingly long explanations about what the movie is doing wrong scientifically. His mini-lectures are sometimes as draining on the energy level of the play’s pace as they are on the filming of the scene itself. His final doom-and-gloom diatribe puts him in the spotlight as who else but once again of course, the mad scientist.
There are also some scene pauses that I personally did not find that comical or needed. Matt Standley is a lumbering PA (Production Assistant) who actually draws some of the biggest laughs of the evening and probably wins the most audience hearts as he slowly shuffles in and out doing odds and ends things (like repeatedly replacing ever so slowing a ice rock that others keep sitting on and breaking). But even he is not all that funny when he spends what seems like an eternity alone on stage sifting through the ice and cans in a cooler looking to no avail for Nicole’s Diet DP.
But even more curious is the ending of one scene in which Writer Caxton slowly drinks an entire bottle of water, crumpling it as it empties, and then walking away. Huh? Yeah, we know it is hot; and you are thirsty, but … .
So while in the hundred minutes (no intermission) of Continuity we get a pretty good idea of the follies and egos of moviemaking that are being satirized, too many of the people and situations spotlighted are too much repeats of what we have seen before in sitcoms, movies, and even other plays and are thus usually not hilarious enough to elicit more than just gentle chuckles nor pointed enough to lead to new insights about the industry. Even with excellent cast members who overall do their best to make it work, Shotgun Players’ staging of Continuity is a rare, almost-never-before time that I cannot offer my hearty recommendation to see their current show.
Rating: 2+ E
Continuity continues in through June 21, 2026, by Shotgun Players at their Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, California. Tickets are available online at https://shotgunplayers.org/box-office/, by phone at 510-841-6500, ext. 303, or by email at boxoffice@shotgunplayers.org.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Shotgun Players
