Cape Disappointment

CRASH COURSE Bos and Creighton take a wrong turn.

Photograph: Ryan Jensen

Among the better experimental companies to emerge in the past five years (Les Freres Corbusier, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Banana Bag & Bodice), the Debate Society fills a unique, shadowy niche. While the others might employ gestural vocabularies, metacabaret or high-concept lampoon, the Debate Society is carving out a body of work notable for its queasy humor and moody, haunting tableaux. The crafty group has an elliptical narrative style that mixes noir with horror, foregrounding American loners in desolate landscapes.

Its new production, Cape Disappointment, is a melancholy road-movie of a piece, with three story lines intersecting like rural byways leading deep into dangerous territory. Taking inspiration from abandoned Americana, set designer Karl Allen transforms P.S. 122’s wide upstairs space into a crumbling drive-in lot. The locale is populated by a brother (Michael Cyril Creighton) and a sister (Bos), en route to pick up an aunt (Pamela Payton-Wright) when they get lost in the woods. There are other car-centric plotlines: Two traveling linoleum salesmen (Creighton, Thureen) bound for Hollywood find themselves detoured by a one-armed hick matriarch and her daughter. In yet another strand, a pedophile (Thureen) finds himself outwitted by a wise little girl (Bos) who has stolen the family truck.

Fascinating though each piece of the story is, Cape Disappointment resists a clear read in terms of causality or overall meaning. “Dream logic” is probably the best way to describe its structural twists and dead ends, which make the journey weird but never dull.