“Nacho Ate Spiderman”: Spit It Out. Spit. It. OUT!

Michelle Kholos Brooks’ comedy Nacho Ate Spiderman is being given an airing at the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch. I’d like to say that this play, directed by Sarah Norris, is a breath of fresh fall air, but it’s a smog of cliche-ridden characters. Maybe it’s meant to be a broad satire of modern California suburbanites, but the level of wit and imagination doesn’t rise that high.

The play centers around two neighboring couples in Venice Beach, CA in 2023. One couple, the Brads (Sam Balzac and Christopher Daftsios) are a pair of queens who have adopted a rescue dog in Tijuana, naming it Nacho. The couple next door, Xander (Ezra Barnes) and Devorah (Anna Khaja) are the owners of a purebred champion rabbit, Spiderman. The play’s title tells you the (unseen) event that starts the play in motion.

The Brads, horrified that the dog they’re raising as vegan would go after, let alone eat, a rabbit, attempt to hide the fact by burying the rabbit in their backyard. They might accomplish it if they weren’t so traumatized by their dog being capable of hunting and killing another animal, so worried about the trauma Nacho must be undergoing, and so busy stopping everything to coo “Oooh, da baby” to each other when thinking about their dog. And, of course, they can’t face having to tell their neighbors what happened, preferring to think the rabbit ran away.

It’s easy to believe Spiderman ran off. Devorah has been raising him as free-range, meaning having the run of their yard unsupervised and having no cage at all. Devorah, who for all intents and purposes could have been named Karen, goes on endlessly about how special and wonderful her rabbit is, not to mention her legendary cheese and fruit plates and her grandmother’s antique glasses. Xander, for his part, is passively calm to the point of being invisible, refusing to get caught up in anyone’s emotional turmoil.

It’s when Nacho shows up carrying Spiderman’s chewed-up body that things go into high gear. Devorah goes from friendly neighbor to vengeful mommy in an instant, blaming Nacho’s behavior on the Brads and suggesting that that’s what they get for adopting a dog off the streets of a Mexican city. (She even suggests that the dog is an illegal immigrant.) For their part, the Brads are immediately sorry, yet can’t help but point out that perhaps letting a rabbit run loose in one’s yard next door to a dog-owning home is no guarantee of the rabbit’s safety. It’s the dog’s nature to hunt, they say, even though in their defense they were raising him vegan.

I’m sure director Norris and the cast tried their best with this script, but it was just too much to turn these characters into living, breathing people. One could forgive the Brads for being PC and ditzy if one saw any other gay characters on stage for balance. One might forgive Devorah for acting the bereaved mother if there was another rabbit owner to provide perspective. By default, Xander turns out to be the voice of reason, a man resigned to letting the eccentricity around him just flow past without comment, just to preserve his sanity. But there are times when he seems to be just an afterthought of the playwright’s.

It is a first for me to review a production at NJ Rep that was a disappointment. Even with the high level of work done by the design team, I felt let down to see a purported comedy with such little humor or grace. Nacho Ate Spiderman, unfortunately, is such a comedy. I cannot recommend that you see it, although you may find it more to your liking than I did.

Nacho Ate Spiderman is presented by the New Jersey Repertory Company at the Lumia Theatre in Long Branch through Oct. 25. For more information, or to obtain tickets, go to njrep.org.