Amy Meyers and Laura Domingo Photo by Lois Tema

The Gulf tells the story of two women, Kendra (Amy Meyers) and Betty (Laura Domingo), in a toxic relationship that is clearly no good for either of them. The play's action takes place on a small boat, which the two women have taken into the shallow coastal waters of the Alabama gulf coast to seek redfish. Kendra is the butch, silent type, focused on the water and on her fishing line which she casts over and over again, with almost zero fish taking the bait. Betty is more femme, a chatty, gregarious type who pesters Kendra with questions and subtly (and not-so-subtly) tries to encourage Kendra to dump her job at the sewage plant and join Betty in enrolling in community college to seek a new career. Betty, being an avid reader of the well-known career-planning guide "What Color is Your Parachute?" has plenty of suggestions.

The set, by Jenna Forder, is marvelous: Spanish moss hanging everywhere and a skeleton frame suggesting a boat, with props, also by Forder, that will be familiar to anyone who has spent time on small boats: cushions, towels, drink cozies, and tackle boxes.

But the verisimilitude ends there, for while the relationship between the two women is clearly tense–a gulf clearly exists between them–playwright Cefaly plunges the women into conflicts that indicate an abusive relationship but are, sadly, resolved far too easily given the nature of the abuse. Yes, in abusive, co-dependent relationships, one partner will often acquiesce too easily to the anger or manipulations of the other, but it rarely happens as quickly as it does here, especially given the nature of the abuse. For example, it begs reason to think that (and here comes one of the promised spoilers) if someone threw you off a boat floating in the Gulf of Mexico and then beat you with a paddle as you tried to climb back aboard, it might take more than two or three lines to get you talking again.

While Cefaly's dialogue is naturalistic and flows easily, she fails to establish what is at stake for these two women early enough in the action for us to care about what Kendra and Betty want from life. Betty has ambition, and wants to improve their lives. Kendra? She just wants to fish and drink beer. It seems the only thing truly linking the two is sex, and despite a palpable heat between the two, relationships built almost entirely on sexual desire rarely last.

Despite the unrealistic nature of their relationship–at least for the 85 or so minutes of it we get to see–Domingo and Meyers do solid work here. Meyers's sour puss face seems an appropriate mask to hide the angst she obviously feels but won't admit. Domingo's Betty bounces with a child-like energy with such sincerity that we feel for her every time Kendra puts her down or insults her. I'd love to see them practice their craft with better text to work with. (I'd also like someone to tell Meyers that she holds the paddle–when she is using it as a paddle and not as a weapon!–all wrong.)

As it is, The Gulf is, to quote the Bard, a lot of "sound and fury signifying nothing."

The Gulf runs through November 24, 2024, at New Conservatory Theatre Center, Walker Theatre in the Round, 25 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco CA. Performances are Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm and Sundays at 2:00pm. Tickets are $25-$72.50. For tickets and information, please visit NCTCSF.org or call 415-861-8972.