The description of Ellen Fairey’s girl, 20 is enticing. According to arizona women’s theatre company, producing this work in their bunker outpost in Scottsdale, it “…tells the story of a freshman student who finds herself in a school counseling program after writing a sexually explicit essay for her English class. When her sessions are observed from behind a two-way mirror by two male students, things take a turn toward obsession and betrayal.” It comes with warnings of mature subject matter and adult content. Who wouldn’t get excited by this? However, the text itself is reasonably tame when compared to what passes for comedy on the networks. There’s a sense that this play should have something more going on underneath, but whether it’s awtc’s production or the text that disappoints, the twists that converge on themselves as the play winds toward its fussy climax aren’t quite as effective as one senses they should be.

Director Deborah Carrick gives us as many interesting stage pictures as possible in the cramped quarters. The pacing on the opening night suffered at the beginning from what seemed to be jitters, but as the intrigue grew, the pacing found its footing. Her greatest triumph comes when Nessa Hawkins, playing Jade, the girl in the title, gives the first of her sessions. It’s possible that the hesitations lay with the cast. A three person ensemble such as this depends greatly on the connections between all three. Hawkins is very attuned to her character and gives a strong performance of this shadowy character, more talked about than talking. Cale Aylsworth’s slacker film dude Marty comes across as caricatured and flattened at the start, but it’s a choice, not a detriment. As the intrigue grows, so does his character and his arc. The only problem on opening night seemed to be his grasp of lines. The weak link in the trio is Andy Orburn as the uptight psych grad student Sam. Orburn plays at Sam’s affectations and quirks, but doesn’t seem to embody them. His fidgeting when confronted with a difficult situation appears stagy, and his lines are occasionally delivered with less conviction than needed. The result is a trio that doesn’t click at critical moments, making the production lose some of its needed substance and mystery.

Steve Gonnella is given the charge to create most of the visual mood with his lighting, and does a pretty good job with it. The cramped set does its best to evoke the many locations.