The Rocker and the Stalker

Llywelyn Jones’ “Why Can’t I Be You?” recently premiered at The Players Backstage performance space. (His play won The Players’ 2015 New Play Festival; this year’s performance was the prize.) It’s a darkly comic meditation on America’s love/hate relationship with fame.

Phil-the-stalker (Rafael Petlock) accuses Jason-the-rocker (Andres Bustos) of being a sell-out. The sentence is death. But it’s not so easy to carry out. The stalker has to hide in the bushes outside the rocker’s L.A. dream castle. Over a long eight months, Phil learns Jason’s routine. Then he gets his chance—and ambushes the rocker in his bedroom. 

The stalker lists a litany of artistic sins. (Making a country album appears to be the worst.) The stalker then lists the worldly goodies the rocker bought with his compromises: Countless groupies, fawning fans, a mansion, a pile of cash, and lots of big stuff. Now you see what’s really eating the stalker …

Not the fact that the rocker sold his soul to the devil of commerce. The fact that the devil never made the stalker an offer. “Why can’t I be you?” Phil wants fame. That’s his real gripe.

Fame ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, says Jason.

Jason: Remember on Christmas when you couldn’t wait to get that one special toy you’d been bugging your parents for all year? You get the present, open it and you’re excited. A week later you’re bored and it’s in the trash. Then you’re on to the next thing you want.

Fame is empty, fine. But Phil wants that emptiness.

Be careful what you wish for.

Bustos’ rocker is a burned-out case with a thousand-yard stare in his eyes. (Evidently you can party too hard.) Even when a gun’s in his face, you get the feeling he’s not all there. Petlock’s stalker is wound too tight — the portrait of an enraged, frustrated artist with talent and charisma but no stage. Lucy Manuel plays the rocker’s used-and-abused fiancée; Richard Russell is a smarmy talk show host. They make an impression in their few scenes. 

The play’s two main characters may be miserable, but don’t expect “Misery.” This is the theater of interrogation and confession. (John Patrick Shanley. “Doubt” comes to mind. And the “Degree Absolute” episode of “The Prisoner” TV show from the 1960s.) Jeff Dillon’s direction nicely captures the script’s Spanish Inquisition rhythms. Plot isn’t the point so much as peeling back the layers of image around the rocker’s true self. If he has one. 

As far as plot resolution goes, there are just a handful of endings …

Stalker kills rocker.

Rocker kills stalker.

Stalker and rocker find common ground.

Stalker and rocker switch places. 

I’ll let you guess how Jones’ black comedy ends.

Just be careful what you wish for.