Nina Metz

Sometimes snooping around is the best way to get to know someone, or, know yourself. At least, this seems the premise behind playwright Carlos Murillo's "Offspring of the Cold War," the story of two thirtysomething neighbors, Miranda and Marcus, who begin the play as strangers and then gradually discover a shared history. Cranky and reclusive Marcus (John G. Connolly) is awakened one morning by Miranda (Nina Sallinen), the small, intense woman who lives next door. Initially, their interaction is stilted and falsely polite, but once they begin to riffle through Marcus's closet (which is stuffed with clothing salvaged from his dead mother's antique shop) everything changes. As they try on various garments, they literally become different people—an Irish whore, a wounded soldier, giggling schoolgirls—melting in and out of reality like a Salvador Dali painting. Each successive character turns out to be linked to the next, and all are connected by a proliferation of bother-sister love affairs (OK, they're half siblings, but still... ). There's enough of a mystery to keep you hooked during the first two acts. By act three, however, it all starts to feel contrived and it is easy to lose interest as the play inches towards its inevitable ending. Under the direction of Lisa Portes for Walkabout Theatre Company, both Connolly and Sallinen are believable and compelling as they morph in and out of their various roles.

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