STAGE WEST: "Beside Myself" at North Coast Repertory Theatre

That's Erin Noel Grennan, as Gemma, hiding from her own anxiety in "Beside Myself." Observing her with understandable alarm is Christopher M. Williams and Matthew Henerson (far right). Photo courtesy of North Coast Repertory Theatre.

            Paul Thomas Slade’s “Beside Myself” derives its comedy and its underlying message from the notion that there are two diametrically opposed people inside each one of us: the person who possesses empathy and the one who does not. It’s a dual reality for psychotherapist Gemma, the protagonist of Slade’s one-act having its world premiere at North Coast Repertory Theatre.
            The empathetic Gemma (Erin Noel Grennan) speaks understandingly and compassionately to her patients; the other Gemma wishes they’d just go away, and she’s not above literally ordering one to do so in this funny, albeit strained at times, comedy that opens NC Rep’s 44th season.
            To begin with, one must accept an unlikely, sci-fi’ish premise, that a bit of brain surgery performed by elegant but smarmy Dr. Thatcher (Jacquelyn Ritz) can transform anyone suffering from profound nervousness or anxiety into a calm, confident, high-achieving individual.
            Gemma, first seen in the dentist’s office that she mistakenly believes is the miracle-working Dr. Thatcher’s, is profoundly nervous and anxious – cowering, shivering, face-tapping in the waiting room. Grennan does this so believably that we’re practically worried for her. By way of comparison for TV nostalgics, Bill Shatner in panic mode aboard an airplane in the famous “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” episode from “The Twilight Zone” would be zen personified by comparison.
            Gemma’s in a twilight zone of her own, scared to leave the house and no longer able to function as a therapist. No kidding.
            Reassured with smiling platitudes and sales-pitchy promises by Dr. Thatcher and her assistant Sylvie (Alanna J. Smith), a walking, talking, beaming satisfied customer of the surgery herself, Gemma goes through the procedure, trembling all the way.
            Wonder of wonders, she emerges afterward in her hospital gown, calm and confident – and cocky – as was promised to her. The first sign of her loss of empathy – the chief side effect of the surgery that is explained later – is taking the flowers brought to her by her doting, wannabe boyfriend Colin (Thomas Daugherty) and tossing them onto the floor the sec he’s gone.
            It’s not long before we see Gemma the transformed psychotherapist back at work, “listening” to her patients as if they bore her, advising them to seek and destroy those who would demean or oppose them, and altogether acting as if she’d rather be anywhere but in their company.
            Playwright Smith could well be making shrewd observations about psychotherapy in “Beside Myself” to the point of subtly suggesting that there is no miracle surgery to cure someone of their anxiety and insecurities, and that there are some lousy shrinks out there too.
            But that’s subtextual. “Beside Myself” relies most on physical comedy and in particular Grennan’s and her fellow cast members’ ability to inhabit two people at once, to show one personality in conflict with another. Watching this being accomplished should result in the heartiest laughs from the audience.
            Grennan does this better than anyone, though in the latter part of the story, when others of Dr. Thatcher’s patients are caught in the same internal battle between their own empathic and non-empathic selves, she is joined by Matthew Henerson, Christopher M. Williams, Smith and Ritz, all playing multiple roles.
            When a remote-control zapper enters the fray toward its climax, “Beside Myself” turns somewhat cartoonish though Grennan manages to remain credible regardless.
            Staging the characters’ back and forth must have been a challenge – though a fun one – for all. Director David Ellenstein makes it work, aided by his likable cast that never appears to take the doings that seriously.
            Admittedly the first thing that I thought of when I heard the description of the “procedure” in this production was a lobotomy, and there’s nothing funny at all about that. But relax. The brain surgery in “Beside Myself” is fairy-tale stuff even as it makes an important point about the value of human empathy.
            Too many people around us, some of them in positions of power, seem to have lost theirs and have no desire to get it back. Dr. Thatcher must have been busier than we know.
            “Beside Myself” runs through Oct. 5 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.