Ana and Simon are twins. Ana wants to sell her eggs for piles of money. Simon wants another beginning after his latest bender. They have spent a lifetime disappearing into each other and seeking to define their lives as separate beings. And now, through family, lovers, humans caught in the spiral of their narrative and the memories in which they all reside, they come to terms with their ghosts.

The Itch is story of sibling love, addiction, and how far we’ll go to save ourselves and others, experienced through theatre, film and original music.

The American family drama gets a contemporary and creative spin in a very nice new play, The Itch, written by Alexandra Zelma-Doring and directed by Theresa Buchheister. A smart and well developed structure facilitates a textured and poignant relationship between the play’s focus, Ana, and her twin, Simon, who struggles with addiction and that rock star itch to get out of town. But the twins love each other, and understand one another in that special twin way, so Ana commits herself to helping Simon. The play is about how he struggles and how she sacrifices, and boy does he struggle, and boy does she sacrifice. Performed by Zelma-Doring, Ana absolutely exudes the exhaustion of her burden, and it’s genuinely depressing. I’d run through a wall if she could shake it, but that won’t happen as long as Simon (Gore Abrams) is sick, and his addiction is clearly much more than chemical; he believes in cutting town in that old American cowboy way. In this way, figures of the classic American family drama, the mother with the burden of her family and the directionless (charismatic but obnoxious) young man, are recast as Ana and Simon. Their relationship is rather detailed, satisfying. Ana is …Read more