by jason schafer

The Varscona Theatre
Preview FEBRUARY 11, 2010
Opening FEB 12 Closes FEB 21
7:30PM nightly, except Mondays
Saturday pay what you can MATINEE

“Have you ever done it… Googled yourself? I do it mostly when I’m stressed or cranky. It helps. It calms me. I get a search engine snapshot of how I fit into the world. I wanted to meet someone with my name. Kind of as an experiment.”

When a balloon-obsessed man who works at Home Depot types his name into a search engine, he discovers that he shares it with a porn star. He, in turn, stole the moniker from a childhood nemesis, a poetry- blogging auto mechanic. Balloon Man convinces Porn Star and Auto Mechanic to meet with him.What starts as a curiosity turns into an obsession that makes these three men’s worlds violently collide again and again, under increasingly strange and farcical circumstances, until they have all been injured by each other, both physically and emotionally, several times over.

The play is an insightful and entertaining window into our society’s preoccupation with fame and recognition, and how internet innovations like blogs and online chats promote one’s quest to be known, even as the same technology can lead to a debilitating isolation that increases the need for connection...