Falls for Jodie.

It's powerful when we forget we're audience members and start to feel like spies watching a private conversation. That's how Falls for Jodie felt to us. In the smaller theater at The Tank, we were close enough to feel as though we were sitting in the hotel room with the characters. Neither actor broke the fourth wall, so that feeling of being an unseen observer stayed with us. It was intimate, intense, and really pulled us into the story.

The play takes place entirely in a hotel room in Connecticut, with just two actors. Boone Sommers plays John Hinckley Jr., the guest, and Harry Thornton plays Eddie, an employee at the hotel. Through their conversations, we discover why John has traveled there and what he hopes to do. Their connection starts out as something almost purely transactional, but gradually develops into a friendship and, eventually, a business partnership. That changing relationship gives the play plenty to work with without leaving the room.

We have seen several productions at The Tank now, and one of the things we enjoy is how completely that small space can change. It never seems to feel like the same place. Here, the closeness made the situation feel especially real. There was something almost film-like about watching these two men together, and the connection to actual history sometimes gave us the feeling of watching a documentary. That is a description of how immediate it felt to us, rather than a claim about its historical accuracy.

What struck us most, though, was that the emotional focus felt more concerned with love and obsession than with the assassination attempt associated with Hinckley. We were drawn into what moved these characters to act, rather than simply waiting for the history we recognized. Both men have feelings for people who do not even know they exist. They may think of those feelings as love, but to us, obsession seemed a much closer description.

John's fixation is on the actress Jodie Foster, and we found the strength of that attachment fascinating and unsettling. This is someone he has never met, yet the desire to be physically near her is powerful enough to take him across the country. We kept coming back to the difference between this and an ordinary story of unrequited love. It is not just that the other person does not return the feeling. They have no idea that this whole emotional life is happening around them.

That was one of the ideas we carried into our conversation afterward: someone can change their life, travel a long distance, and make enormous decisions because of a person who remains completely unaware of them. The feeling exists entirely on one side, but its consequences are real. Having both characters caught up in their own fixations gave us more to think about than John's attachment alone. It kept our attention on the people in the room and the feelings driving them.

Eddie's initial approach is hardly the beginning of a warm friendship. He offers to introduce John to Foster in exchange for money, and we felt he had spotted a vulnerability he could use to his advantage. There is distance between them at first, which makes the gradual change in their relationship interesting to watch. They become a duo, even starting a catalog business together. That venture runs into trouble, but the growing connection between them is what held our interest throughout those developments.

Underneath all of this, we felt a great deal of loneliness and insecurity. John's family has money, but that does not make him any less isolated. We talked afterward about how comfortable financial circumstances do not necessarily mean someone is emotionally secure or happy. The production made that contrast noticeable without needing to take us outside this one room. For us, the loneliness was an important part of what made these conversations worth spending time with.

Sommers and Thornton both give strong performances, and there is a lot of dialogue for them to carry. This really is a play built around talking, listening, and the relationship changing through conversation. We never felt that the amount of dialogue was a problem, because both actors delivered it so well. The intensity drew us in, but we also appreciated the control. There were quiet moments as well as loud ones, and the shifts gave the evening a good sense of movement.

Chen-Wei Liao's scenic design is simple, with a curtain allowing the production to use both the front and the back of the stage. We liked how much could be achieved with that arrangement. A television came on at certain moments, another concrete detail within the hotel-room setting. There was no need for a lot of scenery when the actors, their voices, and the conversations were doing so much of the work.

What was particularly effective was how different that same room could feel. Subtle changes in the staging made it seem empty, leaving John looking very alone. At times, the room felt dark. At others, when the conversation became more active and the energy between the characters grew, it felt brighter and fuller. We always knew we were in the same place, but our feeling about that place kept changing. That was a clever use of a minimal setting.

We also appreciated the writing and direction. The production brought its elements together well while keeping the emphasis on the two men and their exchanges. Rodri Hernandez Martinez's costumes were another part of the production we liked. Overall, the staging felt well put together without taking attention away from the performances, which were the strongest part of the evening for us.

Falls for Jodie was an unexpected pleasure, and we were very glad we attended. Its historical connection is part of the interest, but what stayed with us was the closeness of the experience: two people talking, becoming attached to one another, and revealing the loneliness beneath their obsessions. Strong acting and an intimate setting made that compelling to watch. We came away with a very enthusiastic recommendation.

Catch Falls for Jodie if you can before it closes on October 18th.