BY Kent Straith

WALLED LAKE, MI–In the spring of 2016, the world was given the gift of the much awaited classic “Batman vs. Superman” during which, at risk of cutting out a lot of extraneous information, Batman fights Superman. At the climax of the battle, Batman is about to deliver a final blow to a weakened Superman, and Superman desperately cries out “MARTHA!” (to him, the name of Martha Kent, Superman’s adoptive mother)…which causes Batman to stop…realizing his enemy has just yelled the name of his own deceased mother, Martha Wayne. (Sidenote: The braintrust at DC Comics in the late 1930s seems to have lacked creativity in one bizarrely specific area.)

They then proceed to have a conversation which boils down to “your mom’s name is Martha? MY mom’s name was Martha!”, and a friendship and partnership blossoms from the revelation of this misunderstanding. That being said, this movie is, quite famously, terrible, but I was reminded of it these eight years hence during the viewing of Act I of the Pulitzer Prize For Drama finalist “The (Curious Case Of The) Watson Intelligence” by Madeleine George as produced at The Inspired Acting Company in Walled Lake.

First, it’s important to say that the three actors in this show are all quite good, and definitely make the most of the material. The material itself contains the seed of an idea that seems very profound, but Ms. George attempts to explain it by spinning a tale that sounds kind of like a dream you wake up from in pre-dawn morning, knowing with every fiber of your being that the unconscious brainstorm you just had is the key to EVERYTHING. You jot down every note you can remember before falling back to sleep, but when you later review your notes, you realize that to the fully alert mind, it sounds like total gibberish. Important note: This story is NOT total gibberish, but it is very thematically dense, and you need to be very much on the same wavelength with the playwright to understand it.

As the titular Watson, Dan Johnson is a true standout. Johnson plays…well…four characters named Watson, who are all different historical people, but also all kind of the same guy, who make similar decisions regarding one particular woman…or, actually probably three women, all named Eliza, at different points in history.

Johnson is constantly quick-changing his clothes and diving in and out of different accents and voices in order to portray Sherlock Holmes’s assistant Dr. John Watson, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant Thomas Watson, big box store tech guru Josh Watson, and the physical manifestation of an artificial intelligence named Watson that 21st Century Eliza is working to perfect after “kinda sorta” stealing it from IBM. Confused yet? I have nothing but praise for Johnson who manages to play all these characters in a never repeating pattern sometimes with only seconds to get into a new headspace, and his role deepens and matures as the show progresses, and when the climactic confrontation hits, you find yourself surprised how gifted an actor he is.

Maggie Alger is a Michigan actress playing all the Elizas, though mostly 21st Century Eliza, a genius PhD computer scientist who is also a spectacular bombshell with the greatest hair I’ve ever seen in real life. Eliza (improbably, to say the least) falls head over heels in love with Josh Watson, a person who definitely has very strong opinions about Game Of Thrones. Josh is dumbstruck by his luck and can’t believe that this kind of woman wants to have him in her life and her bed. Especially because their meet-cute is her catching him incompetently spying on her while employed by her vengeful, paranoid ex-husband Frank.

Alger speaks this kind of language fluently and with ease, and if you guessed that a story about time travel, computer engineers, and artificial intelligence might have a LOT of words in it, you’d be right. Alger’s dexterity with the complexity of the language here would remind fans of the work of David Mamet or Aaron Sorkin and how you can pretty quickly tell if an actor has the chops to play in those sandboxes or not. But she’s also convincingly passionate as a woman who is far more comfortable designing a perfect artificial personality than opening herself fully to a real one.

The third character in this drama is played by John DeMerell, who opens the show and provides scene breaks as a Rod Serling-esque figure at the side of the stage, ominously intoning the famous phrase “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.” Most of the time, though, he’s two different incarnations of Frank Merrick, Eliza’s ex, who is running for City Auditor in this unnamed town somewhere in upstate New York. 21st Century Frank is an abrasive, sneering, Ayn Rand quoting libertarian who DeMerell plays with a New England accent that makes Frank into a malevolent Peter Griffin…but he’s not really a bad guy deep down. Eliza walking out on him and subsequently ghosting him at every turn has broken him, and he’s easy to feel sorry for. 19th Century Frank, on the other hand, is a deeply bad guy, and the less spoiled about him the better.

At risk of repetition, this show is enjoyable, but more due to the quality of the performances and the confident direction of company Artistic Director/Founder Jeff Thomakos. I have a very strong sense that the playwright was trying to say something deep, but after twenty four hours of reflection, am still not totally confident what it was. But you know what? I wasn’t a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, so I’m very much in touch with my limits here.

Adults of all ages (and this is a pretty adult show) will enjoy this production. It’s fair to say that the smarter you are, the more you’ll like it, and I look forward to seeing what else these actors and this young theater company have to offer in the future.

(The Curious Case Of The Watson Intelligence is playing at The Inspired Acting Company at 1124 E. West Maple Dr. in Walled Lake, MI – now through April 21st. Tickets are available at www.inspiredacting.org, or by calling the box office at 248-863-9953)