Rhett Goldman’s Every Guy starts with an interesting, if not unique, premise. Two childhood friends grow-up with “Me” (Rhett Goldman) always being a little bit better than his friend, “Every Guy” (Mitchell Ashe). Their lives run in parallel until sometime in their Sophomore years when they begin to debate why a girl would want to have sex with them. Me tells Every Guy that given a choice, the girl would choose Me every time since he is the better of the two. Although it will seem unlikely to many, this triggers a downward spiral in Every Guy of alcoholism, drug abuse, neglect of academics and social withdrawal and finally a break in the friendship.

If Goldman would have continued with this theme and that single relationship, we would have seen two lives, sometimes apart sometimes together that always seem to intertwine. But Goldman decides to borrow a theme, if not a device from Will Eno’s “The Underlying Chris”. Every Guy becomes everyone that “Me” meets, uses, and then discards. No one is good enough to meet his expectations. Eno does this by having a “new” gender and race neutral actor become “Chris” as “Chris” remains the same. Goldman has Ashe’s Every Guy become every contact that Me has and each Every Guy suffers the same fate as the original – not good enough to even stand in the shadow of Me. Some confusion results because the original Every Guy often reappears in Me’s life and Me tries to reestablish the old relationship with an Every Guy who is no longer there.

Me is a successful, but not good individual. Every Guy is a broken individual with nothing going for him inside or out. Although we give some sympathy to Every Guy’s plight, the audience will not feel any empathy. Every Guy’s path is written as one he opted for, not one he was forced into.

“Every Guy” does not quite work in its present structure. It might work if Every Guy was the lead role. Currently, that role belongs to Me who is always put in the superior position on stage after the High School break. Reversing the two positions on stage, might give the play more emotional power without significant changes in the writing as it would make it clear that Every Guy was always a victim of Me’s narcissism.

Goldman has done an excellent job directing the piece with few props an no set. The emotions and power of the two characters is always clearly conveyed. I just wish he had taken a different path that would have made me commit some emotional investment.