You can smell the absurdity of Sam Shepard’s ‘Action’ in sharply rendered production at Undermain Theatre

Real food is rarely consumed on stage, and pre-show speeches don’t often include an explicit instruction not to walk through the performance area afterward. Both happen and may be related in Undermain Theatre’s daring production of the absurdist Sam Shepard play Action , the former triggering the necessity for the latter.

Four disoriented people with interesting names — especially the guys, Shooter and Jeep — are holed up in a house, sitting and flailing around a table. From their nonsensical dialogue and violent outbursts, paranoia is obviously in the air. The 1974 play is said to take place in some kind of post-apocalypse, though the events that caused this gathering of mentally deranged survivors are never spelled out. They act as if they’re in danger.

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