The Play HURRICANE SLEEP at iati Is a Time ill Spent-An Odd Twist on the Wizard of Oz

"Hurricane Sleep" is a One Act play with an interesting premise. The program portends a "disaster that brings us closer together and true intimacy."  Unfortunately, it delivers only a disaster set in NYC during Hurricane Sandy inside a flooded bodega.  NYC bodegas are polyglots of transitory people. Should strangers be stranded together by happenstance during a disaster, perhaps kismet or Kumbaya connections would flourish.  Sal (Rachel Schmeling) traipses into a  literally leaking shelter with sparse supplies strewn around.  Shedding her water soaked coat Sal begins to ply her bag with items.  Sal is startled by another girl, Ome (Neysa Lozano) whose inside watching her.  Hurricane winds are howling with no place to go so they make the best of matters by making pickle & potato chip sandwiches, playing truth or dare and holding a seance.  Look what the storm drags in - spirits of people from their past.  One ghost played fetchingly by Heaven Stephens appears as a Ome's mother and Sal's shrink/Svengali.  There's also beer pong boy and Señor, an elderly Latin singer.  Both only add more detritus to this soggy mess.   Playwright Andrea Goldman borrows from both "The Wizard of Oz" and the poetry of John Donne but mottles the play meant to be have an ephemeral dreamlike quality and theoretical gravitas.   The writing lacks brains and courage.  The magic word was "kindness" so  I will praise the clever set and props design by Mike Mroch, Heaven Stephens performance and Neysa Lozano singing.  Red Alert: there's no play like this.  It liquifies into a waste of time unless you're attending wasted on peyote or boxed wine,