Maeve Coyne, Jamella Cross, and Emily Newsome Photo by Kevin Berne

In keeping with that spirit of brevity, I will say that the fault with Froggy lies not with the cast but with the play itself (by Jennifer Haley), which attempts to recreate the feeling of a graphic novel onstage, with cameras capturing character movement, passing it through a video filter, and projecting these images on various surfaces, as well as pre-recorded roll-ins. If the video transformations actually had the feel of the sort of art one sees in graphic novels, that would be one thing, but here they have the lo-res look of the sort of effects one can achieve on ancient technology like Video Toaster. (Notably, Video Toaster was designed by Tim Jenison, who was the subject of one of my favorite documentaries of all-time–which you must see if you haven't: Tim's Vermeer.)

Set in 2007, the story concerns Froggy (played by Jamella Cross as an adult, and by Maeve Coyne as a youth), who falls in love with an actor, Michael (Adam KuveNiemann), whom she meets on the set of a B-movie where she is working as a production assistant. When Michael seemingly ghosts her, she is obsessed by his disappearance. Then, while in a Best Buy, she obtains a pre-release copy of a new video game, which seems to star the missing Michael.

The rest of the play is a journey to the headquarters of the production company behind the game, which is located in an abandoned silver mine in a ghost town called Calico, interspersed with scenes from Froggy's past, where we meet her father (Michael Ray Wisely) and brother, Rusty (Jed Parsario).

The plot seems scattershot and the dialogue is generally clunky and cliched (though in Haley's defense, some of this may be attributed to the B-movie aspects of the game itself). Even at 80 minutes, the show seemed to take forever to play out, and the gentleman to my right slept through most of it.

It's too late for me, but save yourself.

Froggy runs through March 2, 2025, produced by Center REP, at the Lesher Center for the Arts, Margaret Lesher Theatre, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek CA. Shows are Wednesdays-Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $50-$85. For tickets and information, please visit https://www.centerrep.org or call 925-943-7469.