Boys Next Door, The

It’s hard to categorize The Boys Next Door except as a play that ends happily--though in a bittersweet way. Jack, a social worker assigned to four mentally challenged young men in a semi-independent living set-up, presents the action from his point of view. He’s as important as Tom in The Glass Menageriebut participating in the moment, not recounting from memory.

You wouldn’t know Jack’s structural import to the play from Elliott Raines’ direction of it (or Ross Boehringer, involved but too often on the side) at The Players of Sarasota. He gets terrific realistic performances from the four boys, but they’re never “next door” to Jack or to “normal” people outside.

What happens is a series of scenes of the boys interacting with Jack, each other, and, to a lesser extent, mentally challenged girls, a parent and officials. S-l-o-w-l-y and in many spatial set-ups even in corners of the boys’ apartment (which, by the way, shows no signs of a kitchen stove or usual appliances), they don’t change.

Dylan Jones plays the stubborn Arnold Wiggins, always angry, taken advantage of and ready to take off for Russia (by train, of course). Adam Garrison is Lucien P. Smith, a hulk who wants to grow things by reading how. Really a softie, he finds books as hard as flying like a comic-book hero.

Norman Bulansky’s Stephen Pustai makes the most of a loveable fatty whose life revolves around making, eating and offering others doughnuts. His reaction to Ellie Pattison’s wonderful giggly Sheila as she visits the boys’ apartment for her birthday gift is priceless. The vignette could have been the culmination of the plot of a better play.

Ren Pearson is convincing as schizophrenic Barry Klemper, who fancies himself a golf expert and wants to teach. A first visit by his ugly, bad-tempered, uncaring father (Barry Look) since Barry’s toddler days sets him back years not only emotionally but physically. He’ll need the support the boys can give.

Paul Hutchison and Lynne Doyle triple as “outsiders” -- with Lynne doing an especially memorable turn as Clara. She sits between Sheila and Norman at a dance and screams . . . the unreal real world that’s really next door.