Unlike the TV sitcom Seinfeld – the show about nothing – Samantha Van Der Merwe’s thoroughly enjoyable production of The Antipodes at Shaking the Tree Theatre is a show about everything, including storytelling and gender imbalance, all told with a beguiling blend of realistic dialogue and theatrical magic.

The play, which was written by Annie Baker, features eight people – seven men and one woman – in a windowless conference room, where they’ve gathered to hash out ideas for a story that’s supposed to be so powerful it will blow everyone’s minds. Oh, and it also needs to make the company financing the project “a shitload of money.”

To get the wheels turning, Sandy (Duffy Epstein), the boss, asks everyone to share their personal stories with the group. His instructions are filled with hooey about how the room is a “safe” and “sacred” space, and there’ll be no judgment because they’re just a group of “friends.” Forget that he doesn’t even know everyone’s names and that because there are two men named Danny M. on the team, he dubs them Danny M1 (Sam Dinkowitz) and Danny M2 (Darius Pierce). Playing the faux-sensitive Sandy, who claims to be “a pretty nice boss,” Epstein brilliantly highlights Baker’s humor, which is sly, but pointed enough to let the audience in on the joke.

The tiny space at Shaking the Tree is perfect for such up-close observations. Thanks to Van Der Merwe’s ingenious set design, the audience faces the end of the long wooden conference table, which is narrower at the far end, allowing us to clearly see all the characters’ interactions.

For example, Adam (Ken Yoshikawa), one of the new hires, is constantly looking to Dave (Jim Vadala) and mirrors his responses, laughing when he laughs. In contrast, Josh (Rocco Weyer), another new hire who has yet to receive an ID badge or a paycheck, shrinks when a rowdy Dave grabs his shoulders, and Eleanor (Josie Seid) looks quietly incensed when Dave steals her idea during a Zoom-like presentation for a bigwig who’s too important to show up in person. There’s so much going on in every scene that you could see this production multiple times and still notice new treasures offered by this rockstar cast.

While some of the group are hesitant to put their personal lives on parade, Dave, a starry-eyed Sandy-worshipper, bulldozes into an account of his first sexual experience with his “beautiful older girlfriend,” bragging that he “lasted longer than all the other guys she’d been with.” The grossest male story, though, which features semen, blood and pus, is told by Danny M1, and it unsurprisingly pleases the crudely misogynistic Sandy the most. 

While everyone is subordinate to Sandy, the women in this testosterone-filled room are, of course,  at the bottom of the power pyramid. Eleanor, for instance, who is the only female team member and is also Black, doesn’t complain when Dave talks about a woman’s “boobs” or when Sandy refers to his mentor, who was “a drunk and a bigot, but never held it against anyone.”

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Similarly, Sarah (Rebby Yuer Foster), Sandy’s smoothly accommodating secretary, is a “sweetheart” who’s there to get the team whatever snacks they need. Rather than revolting against her status, she seems to have embraced a work culture that requires her subservience as well as everyone’s conformity. We see this when Eleanor asks for real food like green apples rather than the container of Pringles that Dave craves. Efficiently putting this anomaly-of-a-person in her place, Sarah tells Eleanor to send her request via email.

The coldness of the corporate world is comically apparent, but like weeds growing through cracked cement, signs of humanity persist in popping up, such as when the loud-mouthed Dave reveals his wounded inner child in a story about his father’s suicide. “No one was thinking about me,” he says. The moment is all the more powerful because Baker stops short of getting sentimental. When Josh expresses sympathy, Dave replies, “No.”

Aside from the astute writing, both Baker and Van Der Merwe have an abundant variety of storytelling tricks up their sleeves. As the group spends day after day – and even some nights – in the room, the production becomes more fantastical, with the group whirling around in their black ergonomic chairs, chanting a nonsensical mantra, and listening in silence as Sarah tells a tale about how she was almost eaten by a witch when she was a child. Making that scene even more mysterious, the lights dim as she’s talking, and images of naked trees appear on the walls.

The play delves deeper into the realm of ritual and magic with a story that involves Brian (Samson Syharath), who’s been tasked with recording the notes for each meeting. Throughout the show, the sound of him tapping away on his laptop is often the only response to his colleague’s sensitive revelations. Later, though, he performs a transfixing pantomime that’s accompanied by blood, an atonal sound and a wolf’s head.

As bizarre, mundane and awful as life can be, in Van Der Merwe’s magic conference room stories may not be the answer to our problems, but they still offer sharp and captivating entertainment. 

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“The Antipodes” continues at Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 S.E. Grant St., Portland, through March 22. Find ticket and scheduling information here.

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