Copyright Los Angeles Times
The human experience is nothing if not a series of decisions, choosing which parts of us to show, what thoughts to act on, and much more. A decision to take a chance in attending “Beside Myself,” a world-premier play at Laguna Playhouse, is to travel down the road of self-discovery. Insecurities are played out on stage, then seemingly cast aside with one quick-fix procedure. If only it were that simple. David Ellenstein commissioned Paul Slade Smith to write the play, one that endeavors to go through all the anxiety and worries overwhelming its main character, Gemma, a therapist. The slow-developing “dramedy” makes the audience think, and when Gemma emerges from the other side of the procedure, it soon becomes clear what is missing. In a night-and-day twist of personalities, the therapist has been stripped of her empathy. Her patients are being told what they want to hear, rather than the sound advice they might need. Before long, Gemma leaves her job entirely, determining that it is not serving her interest. Backed by a sensitive boyfriend wondering where the girl he knew went, Gemma and a team of testimonials with equally split personalities work with their unconscious selves to once again find their identities. It’s a hair-flipping, knee-jerking fight for control of oneself in a topsy-turvy show where all who undergo the mysterious procedure become as unrecognizable as a defense attorney turned prosecutor. “That’s kind of what inspired the play...a world without empathy,” Ellenstein said. “It is a pretty bleak place where we’re not very nice to one another. Even if empathy makes you a little uncomfortable sometimes because you feel too much, that’s what makes us good organisms.” Erin Noel Grennan, the playwright’s wife, said she was neither accustomed to playing leading roles in her husband’s plays, nor writing them. The couple ran with her idea for this one. “This time, he really wanted me to play the lead because the subject matter is important to me, and since it was my idea, he was like, ‘Yeah, I think this is the time you should try playing the lead,” Grennan said. “I’m like, ‘Great,’ and then the play gets written, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how to do this,’ and it went from something feeling very daunting and very scary to me to something I’m excited to do now. … “Playing all sides of one person, showing that none of us are just one thing, is possibly my favorite thing. I just love that Gemma, this character, through having that procedure done and through it going wrong, realizing that she’s OK. … Just living our daily lives, whether or not you struggle with a mental health issue, we do pull from different parts of our personality in different situations.” “Beside Myself” debuted at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach, where Ellenstein has served as artistic director for 23 years. In birthing a play, he feels fortunate to have had the playwright with him every step of the way so far, providing some freedom to make changes on the fly. “The last scene of Act I wasn’t in the play at all at North Coast Rep,” Ellenstein said. “The second to the last scene at North Coast Rep was quite a bit longer, when she wakes up after getting the procedure. That scene was longer and kind of ended with her other personality coming through while she was sitting on the gurney. What we decided after the North Coast run is it was too soon, and we needed to see the new Gemma before the old Gemma stuck her head back out.” Thomas Edward Daugherty, Matthew Henerson, Jacquelyn Ritz, Alanna J. Smith, and Christopher M. Williams are also members of what Ellenstein and Grennan both described as a “game” cast that embraced the tinkering. “We presented it to David and the rest of the cast, and we said, ‘OK, we can leave the play completely as is right now and have these changes in here for future incarnations,” Grennan said. “We only had a week, and that included doing tech, at Laguna. I said, ‘If you want to try this, we can do this,’ and if not, we’ll just keep it out and keep everyone comfortable in what we were doing. “Every single person, unanimously, was like, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s go for it.’ That was their attitude from the first rehearsal to now. They’re so game to try anything, and everyone just jumped in and went for it. We’re so happy that they did, because I think it just made the play stronger and made the story stronger.” Laguna Playhouse announced leadership changes over the summer, as Adele Adkins was named managing director of the theater in July. Ellenstein announced in September his resignation as its artistic director, which will go into effect at the end of the current show’s run on Nov. 16. Ellenstein said there was “no animosity” tied to the decision, explaining that when he initially joined Laguna Playhouse on an interim basis in September 2022, he thought he would be serving in the role for a few months.
