Theater Review - Words of warning

The short, sinister plays that make up Steve Yockey’s Sleepy come together like a dream. It’s not a pleasant dream, mind you, but that’s the intention. Playing through Nov. 5 at Dad’s Garage Top Shelf theater, Sleepy’s haunting snapshots may actually induce some sleepless nights.

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Yockey, who writes Steve’s Words of Warning for CL, presents a series of unsettling, interlocking episodes, like the late-night conversation between two lovers (Joe Sykes and Lauren Gunderson) that takes some unexpected turns, or the nervous woman’s (Alison Hastings) phone conversation that leads to a horrific childhood memory.

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Yockey and director Kate Warner cultivate a mood that evokes the menacing pauses of playwright Harold Pinter as well as the unnerving, spare tone of Japan’s modern suspense movies. Otherwise comforting objects, like glasses of milk or headphones, take on untrustworthy overtones. At times Sleepy displays an admirably cinematic quality, such as its attention to lovely but ominous profiles, such as Gunderson silhouetted by refrigerator light, or Hastings’ shadow cast against a video projection of jellyfish.

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The most overtly comic short, “Hotel,” preys on similar dream-logic when street-corner passersby mistake each other’s identities. Matt Myers’ comedic confusion proves especially winning, but the audience’s laughter is laced with nervous relief: Is something terrifying lurking around the corner?

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Fortunately Yockey’s sharp dialogue and the play’s grounded actors keep the characters from resembling bland horror movie victims-to-be. In the final short, Rachel Craw winningly plays a mousy wallflower who becomes less sympathetic and more dangerous the better we get to know her. Throughout Sleepy runs an element of people, often young, being somehow oblivious to the gravity of their situations. The protagonists of each short always hear a distant noise, as if thinking, “I wonder who that bell is tolling for?” but never avoids their fate.

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The moments of actual mayhem in Sleepy feel anticlimactic: It’s hard to simulate violence on stage, especially in a small space as Dad’s Top Shelf. Still, at roughly an hour, Sleepy makes a satisfying sampler that you can treat like a handful of Halloween candy that might contain hidden razor blades. Sleepy’s biggest downside is how it whets your appetite for Yockey to give us a full-length work. No matter how much disturbing content he offers, Sleepy makes us feel like gluttons for punishment.

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Sleepy. Through Nov. 5. Dad’s Garage Theatre Top Shelf, 280 Elizabeth St. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m. $7-$15. 404-523-3141. www.dadsgarage.com.