6969

A.k.a., too much Internet makes the teenager kill his best friend. Act I features some ambitious direction, and Act II forces Max Rosenak to jump through different hoops simultaneously, but the juggling of personalities in 6969 isn't strong enough to let Jordan Seavey's "ripped from the headlines" story go. There are some gloriously weird moments, and Matthew Hopkins does well to keep all the "chatroom characters" behind transparent scrims, like the messenger windows they are, but something about the show feels flat. It's also one case where the real-life story is so much more impressive than the condensed one that Seavey's been forced to adapt; his version is more poetic and less of a soap opera, but that also gives it the ring of something false. I think the problem is that the show is just too long: the brilliant first act, which sets up John's grand guignol of lies, makes the second act too much of an explanation and takes us out of the illusion entirely.

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