Odd

Characters: 2m, 2f / Unit Set Anna Marie has raised her surly, contentious son Micah alone. Though Micah has long been pharmaceutically treated for his O.D.D. - Oppositional Defiance Disorder - she's desperate to introduce a paternal influence. Anna Marie hires Joe Eskin, an itinerant waiter with a vague past and take-no-prisoners tutoring style. Over one critical autumn Joe brings focus and structure to Micah's daily life. But as he opens incurious Micah's eyes to a world outside his sleepy New Jersey suburb, Joe ingratiates himself into the family and inadvertently stirs in Anna Marie dormant romantic longing. In a revelatory battle royal, Micah realizes that equally combative Joe is a kindred spirit - likely "O.D.D." himself. When Micah attracts the brilliant but volatile Ilona, Joe's Cyrano-like coaching to help Micah romance the older girl segues into near obsession. Though smitten Anna Marie remains oblivious, Ilona slowly realizes that Joe's emotional investment in Micah is invasive and threatening. During a Halloween trip into rain-drenched New York City, Ilona ends Joe's control by confronting him in front of Micah, with life-altering results. Exploring the challenges of teen isolation, single parenting, and our dependence on drug therapy as a panacea, ODD illuminates the terror and heartbreak that bind a unique quartet. "The transformation of the fringe player to someone possibly acceptable by mainstream or even upper-class society, the man who breezes into town and energizes the young man with a disability, the man with troubles of his own who solves a family's troubles: These are classic human stories and ODD melds them well while bringing them to 2007...ODD asks who is broken - the people whose disorders are gaping, bleeding wounds, or the people weighed down by their life challenges...The winner of Premiere Stages' Play Festival, ODD is an important work at a time when befuddled parents want to fix their kids with a pill: better living through chemistry." - Gannett/Home News Tribune