When they first meet in Mr. Harris’s year-12 philosophy class, the two characters in Benedict Lombe’s sweet but derivative two-hander Shifters feel an immediate spark. Sure, they seem to be the only Black kids in this school in the northern English town of Crewe — but they also challenge each other’s perspectives from the jump. Dre (Daniel Ezra, All American) is a transplant from south London who works as a dishwasher to earn extra money for his family, while Destiny (Heather Agyepong, Supergirl) is a neurologist’s daughter with a combative, argumentative streak she’s eager to apply to Dre as well as to her teachers.
We actually meet Dre and Destiny when they’re 32 and all grown up: He’s a business school grad who’s opened an African fusion restaurant in Crewe while she travels the world as a concept artist who’s illustrated children’s books and worked on animated films and mounted exhibitions in Venice. Now she’s back home to pay her respects after the funeral of Dre’s beloved grandmother and perhaps reforge the connection they first experienced as teenagers.
Over the course of nearly two hours, Dre and Destiny revisit moments in their relationship, from their teen years and early 20s, when they circle around the idea of coupledom without ever fully committing. The sense of attachment is real, borne of a shared appreciation for African British cultural signposts like the Congolese singer Papa Wemba or the sour sorrel dish known as ngai-ngai. But like magnets of the same pole, they repel each other almost as quickly as they are drawn together. No sooner do they strike up familiar conversational rhythms at the funeral than obstacles emerge: her jazz musician fiancé, his 5-year-old son.
Agyepong glides easily between teenage gawkiness, her youthful overconfidence just as quickly receding, and the guardedness of an adult who’s been around the block a few times. Ezra, meanwhile, projects a kind of amiable hopefulness that’s dampened only by past experiences of disappointment. They convincingly capture the feelings of first love at its most fragile and fractured.
We’ve seen this story before, of course, including the brief ribbon-tying ending just before the final blackout. Lombe and director Lynette Linton seem to be heavily inspired by Nick Payne’s Constellations, another quasiromantic drama featuring two characters who discuss philosophical issues as well as themselves in short scenes that leap forward and backward in time. In Payne’s case, the two lovers also played out multiple versions of their relationship in a literal nod to the woman’s research into string theory and theoretical physics. There’s no such stab at bigger ideas here.
Shifters cribs from Constellations in other ways too. Instead of the color-shifitng balloons that hovered over the players in the original 2012 London production and the 2015 Broadway transfer, Linton places her two actors in a black cube surrounded by dangling strips of light. (Alex Berry designed the sets and costumes, and Neil Austin supplied the lighting.) The hashtag of lights shift in hue and intensity to mark the jumps in time as well as the mood of individual scenes. They also give us something to watch as the two leads drag out their will-they-or-won’t-they exchanges. Shifters runs 45 minutes longer than Payne’s play, but it feels slighter and less substantial. Even so, you’ll find yourself appreciating the engaging performances of two star-crossed souls who find their futures not in the stars but in themselves. ★★★☆☆
SHIFTERS
Cherry Lane Theatre, Off Broadway
Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes (with no intermission)
Tickets on sale through August 30 for $89 to $169