"Expecting Isabel" Is An Uneven Journey Through Infertility

A lot of comedies include a scene where an enormously pregnant woman and her partner are rushing to the hospital so she can give birth. There are far fewer stories about infertility and the complicated journey many couples embark on to either conceive or adopt a child of their own. But this is the material playwright Lisa Loomer chose to mine for comic possibilities in Expecting Isabel, onstage at the Bartell Theatre through March 21. Jeanne Leep directs the third show in Kathie Rasmussen Women’s Theatre’s season and finds a strange mix of broad comedy, absurdism and pathos in the story of married 30-somethings Miranda (Katie Augèr) and Nick (Anthony Leonard), who try just about everything to add a baby to their family. 

The story is told like an uncomfortable stand-up comedy routine, narrated by the couple and illustrated by a very long series of very short scenes. For anyone who has experienced infertility, the signposts of the plot will be painfully recognizable. After a reasonable amount of procreation-minded sex with no results, the couple visits a series of doctors. Sperm is collected with the help of a Hustler magazine. Eggs are analyzed. Pills and hormone shots and increasingly invasive techniques are prescribed by gynecological mad scientists who dream of the day when they can make babies in labs. Unsolicited and unhelpful advice about family planning comes from everyone — even strangers. Group therapy sessions are filled with other wannabe parents, each with a horror story more shocking than the last. There are piles of medical bills that insurance does not cover. And there is mounting desperation, despair and debt. 

Staged in the round in the intimate Evjue Theatre, every scene also involves moving a lot of furniture — the ensemble of six actors create a series of apartments, coffee shops, workplaces, doctors’ offices, sidewalks and a subway station. Minimal props and distinctive costume pieces, all worn over the top of black base outfits, help the ensemble members morph from one wacky character to another, to keep the story moving. (Costume design by Jessica Podemski.) 

As Miranda and Nick, Augèr and Leonard do fine as a generic “every couple,” but the specifics in the script that add texture to the characters are largely left unexplored. Miranda’s general unhappiness and her very real prejudices about what kind of child she would accept in her family are glossed over. Nick is the same goofy guy throughout the play regardless of the couple’s alarmingly shifting economics and his own sacrifices as they pursue the baby dream.

Expecting Isabel is billed as a comedy and it does get some laughs. Nick’s big Italian family serves up a riotous Thanksgiving dinner complete with ravioli and endless doting from the ultimate Momma of a New York goodfellas gang, played with warmth and extra olive oil on the side by Stacey Garbarski. Anne Blust is amusing as Miranda’s alcoholic mother.  Kristina Jin is both entertaining and absurd as the pregnant 17-year-old deciding what to do with her baby, playing with locks of her long blonde hair and taking notes in a rainbows and kittens journal while she interviews Miranda and Nick as prospective adoptive parents. Tom Kastle also brings levity to many of his roles, particularly the physician who sees Nick and Miranda as lab rats, and the marriage counselor with advice that is shockingly on the nose.

But the combination of broad characters based on stereotypes, realistic scenes, dueling narrators arguing about who said what, and a lack of honest emotional engagement makes it seem like the play is fighting with itself to decide which genre to inhabit. The story does have a happy ending, but the overly long trip to get there is a somewhat bumpy ride.