Jason S. Abrams is not a bad writer, PANDIMA shows some good writing and understanding of dialog and language tricks that can engage an audience. His scenes with the married couple worked because their behavior, although in the pandemic, were not of the pandemic. But COVID-19 plays were old about June/July of 2021 – about 2 to three months before theater opened and productions were still being done on ZOOM. Live theater starting in September of 2021 did not breathe any life into them and the passage of 5 years has done nothing to make them engaging. Abrams has given us a play that was, like the gods’ intentions, predestined to fall flat. No amount of quality writing, great direction, or great acting would ever rescue this work.

PANDIMA, as constructed, is not a single work, but three different almost totally independent short plays. One play is about the Greek gods (although Cupid chooses to identify as Roman) who, like all gods, are desperate for attention in a world that has, for undetermined reasons, become monotheistic. They determine to visit a pandemic upon humans with the hope that humans will recognize the God’s power and call upon them for forgiveness and help.

The second play, is the story of the broken up gay couple, Josh (Kelsey Rondeau) and Matt (Christopher Hanks) still living together, but not with each other. Josh is the 501c3 CEO trying to keep his company, with disorderly, hard to manage employees, alive and also constrain his slightly unhinged former lover, Matt. Matt is the lonely, desperate gay stereotype finding it increasingly more difficult to go without sex. Their relationship is almost a complete trope as written by Abrams.

The third story is that of Karen (Isabele Garbani) and Ted (Chino Ramos). They are a married couple where Ted remains detached and apparently accepting of the restrictions while become more and more distant from his relationship and life. Karen is a stereotypical “Karen”. She is concerned with creating a pod of close friends and relatives that will strictly enforce COVID rules but allow them to visit with each other. She needs to control everything and everyone in her life except her perceived “betters” who she supplicates to. Abrams, although fully engaging the tropes associated with this type of couple, is able to write them better because their behavior would be the same outside the constraints of the Pandemic as it is within the Pandemic. He does, inexplicably, introduce and then drop Karen’s alcoholism. It is the one plot line in the play that could survive in another work just about them and their codependency and self-destructive tendencies.

Although there are no major writing flaws in any of the three plots, only the story of the married couple evokes any interest because it is the only story not dependent on COVID for its destructive tendencies. The toxicity of the relationship was present before, during and after COVID and watching a train wreck is always fascinating. It helps that Garbani and Ramos immediately establish themselves as the most talented actors on the stage.

Jonathan McLawhorn’s direction is ok. He triangulates the three stories as he should but inexplicably removes the gods from the stage when they should always be observing their work as would any invested Greek chorus. Some scene changes are unnecessarily clunky in a show where the set is static. But the main problem with PANDIMA is that it is a show without an audience. No COVID show will ever be successful, at least not in our lifetime. These shows get lost in the minutia and never explore the pain of personal loss. Probably because they are almost always about the survivors whose pain was relatively minimal.