A GREAT PREMISE
GETS LOBOTOMIZED

Laguna Playhouse offers a dazzling wall
of doors and not much behind them

Paul Slade Smith’s new play Beside Myself arrives with a knockout premise: Gemma, a therapist, is so consumed by anxiety that she undergoes an experimental “minimally invasive” brain surgery to excise her worry. But near the end of the first act (so I guess it’s a spoiler?) her new, fearless self takes over completely, while the nervous side struggles to become free again. It’s a setup that should split the atom between satire and psychological horror. Instead, Laguna Playhouse’s glossy transfer from North Coast Rep plays like a soufflé that never rises. Director David Ellenstein, who commissioned the play, leans into the script’s farce and chirpy pace when what the material cries out for is unease.

Matthew Henerson, Christopher M. Williams (front on floor),
Erin Noel Grennan (on couch), Jacquelyn Ritz and Tom Daugherty (behind couch)

The production looks spectacular. Above a polished stage floor, Marty Burnett’s two-story royal-blue backdrop of 38 multi-shaped white Laugh-In-like doors gleams with Matthew Novotny’s sharp, shuttered lights—but the visuals outthink the text. Except for those used for entrances and exits, the doors, presumably representing all the compartments of self that Gemma keeps sealed, stay shut—pretty metaphors with nowhere to go. I was prepared for a door-slamming farce, instead, I got an eyelid-slamming flop.

Erin Noel Grennan & Matthew Henerson

As Gemma, the therapist who seeks to reduce her nervousness, Erin Noel Grennan is game, alternately frazzled and poised, but her transformation never quite lands; we sense the shift, yet not the danger. And when she gets caught in conversations with herself, it plays remarkably unfunny. Jacquelyn Ritz gives Dr. Thatcher just the right icy calm, while Alanna J. Smith’s post-surgery receptionist projects eerie cheer, suggesting the Stepford smile the play itself never fully interrogates.

Tom Daugherty, Jacquelyn Ritz, Christopher M. Williams & Matthew Henerson

All except Grennan play multiple roles: the men in the ensemble—Matthew Henerson, Christopher M. Williams, and Thomas Edward Daugherty—work overtime to keep the momentum afloat. Henerson goes from Gemma’s gruff maintenance man to an unnervingly cheerful post-op patient. Williams slips between bland serenity as another successful patient to an argumentative neighbor with a grin that borders on grotesque. Daugherty, as Gemma’s hesitant suitor Colin, provides the production’s most natural grounding—his understated warmth and baffled concern hinting at the emotional core the play never fully explores. All are sharp, disciplined performers; it’s the material, not their effort, that feels undercooked.

Jacquelyn Ritz & Erin Noel Grennan

The first act is flat, a lot of set-up leading to the surgery and the split-personality debacle (which should have been as glorious as Steve Martin’s character in the film All of Me). Smith’s script has wit and an undeniably clever conceit, but it mistakes charm for depth. Its moral—be careful what you cure—should land like a chill as we laugh through clenched teeth; instead, it tickles politely and moves on. The revelations are predictable, the emotional pulse faint, and the laughs sporadic—I counted three: A nervous Gemma takes apart a skull on Dr. Thatcher’s desk, but her inability to reassemble it is pure Chaplin; two assistants enter for the “minor” surgical procedure but they have comically oversized instruments in tow; and when Gemma first visits the doctor, she becomes super-agitated by another patient who speaks of the surgical hell he went through, but she had accidentally gone across the way to a dentist’s office. (Now that I think of it, the idea for the latter was funnier than the execution.)

Erin Noel Grennan, Christopher M. Williams & Matthew Henerson

The second act fares better, but that’s like saying the fried liver was more delicious than the raw Spam.

Beside Myself could have been a modern Jekyll and Hyde for the self-help era, a probing look at what happens when we outsource our humanity to science and self-improvement. What we get instead is a well-appointed sitcom about anxiety management, all surface sheen and underused analogy. Gorgeous set, capable cast, winning idea—what’s missing is the courage to take it seriously. After seeing this, I was most definitely beside myself.

Erin Noel Grennan & Tom Daugherty

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photos by Aaron Rumley

Beside Myself
Laguna Playhouse
606 Laguna Canyon Drive in Laguna Beach, CA
Wed at 7:30; Thurs at 2 & 7:30; Fri at 7:30; Sat at 2 & 7:30; Sun at 1 & 5:30
ends on November 16, 2025
for tickets ($55-$121), call 949.497.2787 x1 or visit Laguna Playhouse

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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