The Nabe

The Nabe is a five-person comedy about social ambition, sexual passion, and Cannabis sativa.

Darren, a very successful developer in his mid-40s, is preparing to build a major housing complex in his old neighborhood, which is in the grip of a long decline. This, he hopes, will not only cement his position as a major player but also improve his standing in the eyes of his fifteen-year-old son, Chris, a pot-smoking video game whiz who thinks him a hopeless windbag. Meanwhile, Tamara, his contact with the city government and much younger offstage squeeze, wants to marry him, have his babies, and bask in his reflected glow.

Enter Jeff, Darren’s childhood friend, a successful weed dealer whom young Darren got started on the road to perdition, who owns the last properties Darren needs to begin the project. With Mary Beth, the hardened woman who shares his home in a non-marriage of convenience and who hopes for a rich payday, urging him on, he resists Darren’s attempt to buy him out cheaply and threatens to reveal Darren’s pot-pusher past, which could stop the development in its tracks.

When Darren appeals to Jeff man to man, invoking their long history, Jeff lures him back to his old behavior, reducing this legend in his own mind to incoherence. Yet Mary Beth is appalled at what Jeff has wrought (“I captured him”), and Tamara and Chris join forces to save Darren from himself.

Does anybody smell smoke?