“Old fucker Time” is how Rex (the commandingly hot-or-cool Will Lyman) characterizes the enemy with whom his mate is sleeping — in the form of Aleksi, a 24-year-old translator and budding geologist. Aleksi proclaims his passion for the older woman on an expedition to Spain to study outcroppings that mirror the oil field in the Niger Delta, the discovery that was the chief feather in Amy’s cap. But even as the Niger find has boosted her career, it has left her troubled by the indigenous people who live crudely in its shadow, lacking even clean water. Further fueling (so to speak) Amy’s sexual attraction to young, gifted, multi-cultural Aleksi is a determination to break out of the “good girl” mold into which she feels clamped both personally and professionally.
All of the human drama is crystalline in The Oil Thief, which makes apt and ingenious use of Hamlet. But the play is filled with dense, lyrical paeans to the geology that both thrills and weighs on Amy, and which are difficult for the layman to comprehend either literally or metaphorically. And the wider, possibly romantic reach of the play’s central image — the banditry that afflicts the petroleum industry — is opaque. The play also skids a little at the end, reverting Pinter-like to the beginning before resuming its conclusion. But Van Dyke, whose previous works include A Girl’s War, has the makings of another winner here. She needs to render her metaphors as clear as her characters’ passions. One hopes that as she sharpens pencil and intent, the present team of thespian engineers remains in place.
Topics:
Theater
, William Shakespeare, Suzan-Lori Parks, Toni Morrison, More 
, William Shakespeare, Suzan-Lori Parks, Toni Morrison, Marianna Bassham, Melinda Lopez, Will Lyman, Jeremiah Kissel, Lydia Diamond, Summer Williams, Marvelyn McFarlane, Less 
