Fog and Filthy Air

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Fog and Filthy Air, written by Tom Diriwachter and directed by Jonathan Weber, is a three-character play supposedly inspired by real-life events. If so, the events do not make for compelling drama, or at least not how this story was presented.

The three characters are Father (Bob Homeyer), Mother (Kate A. McGrath), and their son Tim (Steve Gamble), who come together in a seedy motel in Memphis to deal with an issue of the parents being able to drive back to their home on Staten Island safely after a 1996 road trip to Graceland. Mother called and enlisted the help of Tim, her 34-year-old son, to travel to Memphis by bus to drive the parents back to Staten Island. When he asked why, Mother said she would tell him when he arrived.

There is a short conversation before Tim knocks on the door of the room at the Hound Dog Motel, where his parents are staying. Father is concerned that Mother does not tell Tim why they need him to drive them back to Staten Island, which is not revealed now. They agree to say that Father is very tired and can’t drive.

Tim enters and awkwardly points out that the motel is a pay-by-the-hour location with a parking lot populated by hookers. Mother is surprised, and he reminds her that he always told them to stay at a Holiday Inn. She explains that they took the first place they saw after exiting the highway.

After strained greeting pleasantries, Tim surveys the room. It has twin beds with end tables on either side and a rotary phone on one of them. A black velvet painting of Elvis is hanging on the wall over the beds. Across from the beds is a desk with a coffee maker sitting next to which is a half-bottle of bourbon and a plastic cup. A door is mysteriously propped in the corner of the room, and a stain on the carpet in the middle of the room looks like a silhouette of a body. These mysteries play no significant role in the story.

Tim wants to know the reason he was dragged to Tennessee so urgently. The answer he is given, Father being very tired, doesn’t register as believable. As he presses Mother for an answer, she tries to deflect the questions by getting the trip started immediately. It is not something that Tim wants to do since it took him 20 hours without much sleep on a bus to get to Memphis. He wants a night’s rest before the long drive to New York City. Another issue must be addressed: Tim, a struggling playwright, has to find someone to cover his shift at the restaurant he has worked at for the last eight years, or he could lose his job.

In addition to Tim’s stress over finding someone to cover his shift, his father reveals what caused him to exit the highway and end up in the Hound Dog Motel. His father is an alcoholic who has developed delirium tremors with hallucinations, making it dangerous for him to drive.

This information is agonizingly slow in being revealed, given that there is a half-empty bourbon bottle on the desk, and Father keeps pouring shots whenever the conversation turns stressful. Tim’s struggles to find a sub for his job also drag on the flow of the story. Each time he tries to reach someone on a list of names, the interactions with the other characters stop while the phone is dialed and he is talking. Dialing ten digits on the phone takes time, and when done five or six times over the course of a show, it constitutes a serious disruption in the flow of the story.

It is essential for the audience to become fully engaged with the story and to care about the characters. When that does not happen, the show falls flat. While Homeyer and McGrath make an effort as Father and Mother, they are saddled with one-dimensional characters whose interactions lack chemistry. Gamble’s character is more developed but lacks a believable emotional connection with the other two. The dialogue touches on emotional issues within the family but does not effectively build dramatic tension with those issues. In the final analysis, the play lacks a compelling emotional hook.

Evan Frank’s set design is more faithful to the script than many Off Broadway productions. His motel room set leaves nothing to the imagination. Alexander Bartenieff’s lighting design effectively underscores changes in emotional intensity, such as the event that caused Father to exit the highway for the motel. Roy Chang’s sound design works well in support of the action.

Fog and Filthy Air (through March 23, 2025)

Theater for the New City

Community Space, 155 First Avenue, in Manhattan.

For tickets, visit http://www.ci.ovationtix.com/35441/production/1226226

Running time: 90 minutes without an intermission