In program notes, Fernandez explains that he has worked on these characters and the concept for years, producing poems, screenplays, and even theatrical improv exercises. However, the result is more a crazy quilt of shut-down personalities than a ''Rent"-ian assortment of sparkling creative types. We see these four at home, at work, and at play, yet it's hard to root for anyone -- especially after the affair, which takes but a moment on the stage and results in a lugubrious second act.
But there are merits here -- psychological acuity and clever wordplay. And there's decent comedy, particularly in a coffeehouse scene that wickedly sends up folkie ''niceness." There's even a Greek chorus in the form of neighborhood oldsters, the Pushkins, who shuffle by the house (presented in Josh Tobin's austere set as two adjoining beds). The Pushkins can be annoying, but their commentary is usually apt. When Gordon discovers Suzanne's infidelity, it's also trash day and the Pushkins sing, ''colorful packaging drawing us in / But soon it gets tossed in the recycle bin."
The performers range from competent to skillful, but they're not well-served by a bland score. Fernandez has also worked as music director for the Improv Asylum, and although he has a grasp on the rhythms of various genres, there's not a hook anywhere, and too much cello underscores the elegiac aspects. Also, performers' ranges aren't respected; Joseph Pelletier, who makes a convincingly shifty Bobby, has a pleasant light tenor chronically strained by low octaves.
Amanda Meehan brings a perky earnestness to Katie Jane, who can't wait to start nesting, and Tim Douglas is an apt, buttoned-down Gordon. Sally Dennis's Suzanne has charisma that seems at odds with her character's anxiety and desperation. But a bigger issue are plot holes -- Fernandez hints that Gordon and Suzanne's miserable marriage might result from her ambivalence about having a child but doesn't delve further. Katie Jane irritates Bobby by sending his short stories to magazines, but we never hear him talking about writing as a passion.
Despite these caveats, ''Duplex" is entertaining and intermittently fabulous. One wishes Fernandez might connect with a dispassionate dramaturge and a rigorous music editor to provide the artistic equivalent of a belt-sander -- and thereby remove layers of paint and reveal what could be a lustrously fine-grained story.
