Have you ever wanted to disappear? We’re not talking the typical moments of childhood embarrassment or episodes of teenage angst. This isn’t like the events that inspire dreams of walking around school in you underwear. Fin Kennedy’s play “How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found” (currently playing in Pasadena’s Boston Court) is a tragedy where the protagonist is almost completely unsympathetic…except haven’t we all wanted to disappear from the cares of adulthood?

Do a search (‘google’) the phrase “How to Disappear” and you’ll find a wealth of information: some good and some bad.

Some of it seems targeting people who travel the mental road of the Unabomber, others seem just right for husbands fleeing with families (without the romance of Paul Gauguin) or people whose con game has been discovered. The privacy expert in this field seems to be Frank A. Hearn. He published a guide and works as a trace-skipper–one of those people who tracks down people who’ve skipped town with debts–from angry lovers, to employer who neglected to pay the employees.

Kennedy’s play, currently at the Theatre@Boston Court until 29 May 2011, begins with poignant statements about people who have disappeared. Your heart almost breaks as you think of the despair of mothers and lovers, all looking for closure. You’re mind might wander to thoughts of mass murder or even milk cartons. But all this will change. The play is about Charlie (Brad Culver): a business man in London with a coke problem and we’re not talking soft drinks. He will become Adam with the guidance of someone, Mike (Time Winters), who once knew his mother.

Being sentimental can be dangerous Mike warns Charlie who has taken the name of Adam, someone who died as a child and was from the same area Charlie grew up.  You have to “grit your teeth” and “become a Buddhist.”  You “take that pain and learn to love it.”

Charlie, however, is very much in love with cocaine and apparently very dead. This a mystery about exactly how he got there.

Director Nancy Keystone keeps us entranced with spot-on timing and a lush experience of well integrated visual (lighting design by Christopher Kuhl) and sound (sound design and music composition by John Zalewski).  The production is seductive as we mentally attempt to unravel the mystery of Charlie becoming Adam even as we find his drug addiction making him increasingly repellant.

This might not be the kind of play you want to see if you’re already struggling with the dark despair of this economic climate, or conversely, if you think you have things bad, Charlie’s situation might cheer you up.

“How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found” continues until 29 May 2011 at the Theatre@Boston Court.