Fake rain drips from the ceiling at the end of Thinner than Water, a dreary play by Melissa Ross, directed by Chris Carlos, now on in the smaller of two spaces at Kitchen Dog Theater. Really, the whole two-hour drama is a soggy slog through one family's shriek-storms. Daddy's dying and nobody's got the will, much less the heart, to feel anything like sympathy for the nice lady (played with quiet grace by Angela Wilson) who loved the old man till the end.
KDT co-founder Tina Parker is Renee, eldest of an unhappy trio of half-siblings who hate each other and their father's girlfriend intensely. Her husband, played by Jeremy Schwartz (a terrific actor in a crappy role), is so fed up, he's leaving. Sister Cassie (Liza Marie Gonzalez) wears pajamas under her parka and stalks her fed-up ex (Jamal Gibran Sterling). Brother Gary (Clay Yocum) lives in his mom's basement, works in a comic book store and fails at his first Big Brother appointment with a black kid (never seen, although his angry mom, played by Kenneisha Thompson, comes on twice to throw shitfits).
Two hours of other people's petty problems, all expressed at top volume in terrible dialogue that uses "fuck" in verb, noun, gerund and adjectival forms — that's not entertainment. They also all smoke. Of course, they do.
