THE BOYS NEXT DOOR A Play by Tom Griffin at the Ghent Playhouse M. Hunter ccSCOOP Review   If you are weary of blow ‘em up, shoot ‘em down, gross ‘em out, and wow ‘em with magic and mindless technology, get yourself down to Ghent Playhouse, put your fanny in one of their comfy red plush seats, and watch some unusual, intensely real individuals cope with the world.

Ted Phelps, Jean-Remy Monnay, Kevin Wixsom, Neal Robert Berntson, and Devin James Leonard

Is a play about retarded people entertaining? Entertainment is “agreeable occupation for the mind; diversion; amusement” according to my old Random House unabridged. Random House forgot “often disturbing.” Audiences willingly pay for “disturbing,” and The Boys Next Door is gently so.

Opening night, we in the red seats laughed a lot at the boys, and it was indeed agreeable, diverting, amusing—except for our niggling sense of guilt. After all, we were laughing at the errors of perception, non sequiturs, quirks, odd obsessions, and the childish physicality of these mentally ill or retarded, mostly middle-aged “boys”: Norman, Lucien, Barry, and Arnold.

Actually, the laughter of the audience was hearty and warm rather than mean or condescending. It subsided to quiet attention during the courting scenes between doughnut-loving Norman (Kevin Wixsom) and sweet, slow Sheila (Jody Kordana). Without sentimentality, these two made a simple and touching connection, marred briefly by a sudden display of overly expert dancing!

Barry (Devin James Leonard) provides the first hint of tragedy among the boys. Much later, audience laughter turns into stunned silence when the fast-talking, golf-obsessed Barry retreats into rigid silence in the presence of his brutish father (Tracy Trimm). The life-pain of father and son are expertly shrunk into one extended monologue, and Trimm thrusts it powerfully at the unresponsive son. The father’s left arm is missing, and we understand that damage has been passed down the generation via anger and despair.

The delightful Arnold, played by Ted Phelps, lives in compulsive, perpetual, disjointed motion. Arnold does some variation on witty—like a “modern” poet deliberately juxtaposing unlikely words and notions, which he serves up rat-a-tat-tat. Phelps delivers the playwright’s humor directly from the womb of character.

The lanky, handsome Neal Robert Berntson plays Jack, paid caretaker of “the boys.” Jack’s back-story involving an estranged wife is not convincing. Nor is his talk of job dissatisfaction. Because the actor has some nice moments, I am unsure whether fault is with him or the playwright. It’s a tough role.

Except for some noisy, between-the-scenes furniture moving (which sometimes proved longer than the scenes) and the aforementioned dancing, direction by Paul Murphy is smooth and effective. It is said that smart casting is the genius of directing, and Murphy has cast well, including most of the actors in small roles.

Incidentally, Mary Reardon’s excellent voice and execution of between-the-acts business makes one wonder if she ought to emerge occasionally from behind the stage manager’s headphones and wander into a play. Perhaps she already has.

The Boys Next Door runs weekends through February 8th. Reserve a red seat.