By Dana Lacey

Wanderlust is a true story about a New Yorker who travels to West Africa in search of epiphany. He doesn’t know what epiphany looks like, but he’s pretty sure he’ll find it in Africa.

The story is told by the adventurer himself, the often neurotic and extremely expressive Martin Dockery. Wanderlust is theatre’s answer to Seinfeld: it’s about nothing, but we can all relate. After three years as a temp at the New York Stock Exchange, Dockery quits to set out on the adventure of his dreams (“I started realizing, what if this is not just a job I’m pretending to do? What if it’s actually what I do?” Why West Africa? The more elusive the location, the better the epiphany. Besides, you tell someone you’ve been travelling in Europe, chances are they’ll say “me too.” So Dockery is all set to face the world and become the man he’s always wanted to be–one that knows the answer to everything–only as you’d expect life doesn’t fall neatly into place for him. I loved Dockery, who pulled you right into each story with nervous little asides as he encounters scams, goats and bad fruit. He finds himself saying NO more than he’d like, and imagines parallel universes where he finally says YES, and as result becomes a Better Person.

Finally,  he says YES (swimming in a sting ray-infested beach), and awaits the epiphany that never comes. I wish the play had stopped there, with him treading water and wondering how god will reveal his new found wisdom (“Will it be a cloud?”)  Instead, he goes on to reveal that he did, in fact, find an epiphany, and it was about living life to the fullest or being in love or some cliché crap like that.  Thankfully Dockery’s performance more than makes up for the cop-out ending.

Photo by: Dana Lacey

Details:

Wanderlust is playing at the Glen Morris Studio (4 Glen Morris St.)

by Martin Dockery
(www.martindockery.com)
presented by Martin Dockery from Brooklyn, NY

Cast: Martin Dockery
Audience: General Audience

75 min.
Showtimes:

Thu, July 2 6:00 PM
Fri, July 3 Noon PM
Sat, July 4 8:00 PM
Mon, July 6 10:00 PM
Tue, July 7 2:00 PM
Thu, July 9 8:00 PM
Fri, July 10 2:00 PM

Tickets are available online or by calling 416-966-1062