Review: Past outshines the present in mysterious ‘Headlands’ in S.F.

The fog shrouds all the lost souls, the lovers and the grifters, that populate the universe of film noir. That same mist clouds the vision of Henry, the techie turned gumshoe at the core of Christopher Chen’s enigmatic new mystery “The Headlands.”

An aficionado of the true crime genre, Henry (Phil Wong) is a sheepish Google engineer trying to play detective in the lives of his parents, George (Johnny M. Wu) and Leena (Erin Mei-Ling Stuart), solving the riddle of their love story and his father’s violent death, the trauma that shattered his Sunset district childhood.

Chen’s plays, such as “The Hundred Flowers Project,” “Communion” and “Caught,” are often intricate puzzles that beguile and bewilder the viewer, pushing us to search for clues embedded in the text.

Smartly directed by Pam MacKinnon in its West Coast premiere at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, this sleek 100-minute whodunit holds that same seductive promise, particularly with its red herrings worthy of the Hitchcock oeuvre. But “Headlands” lacks the snappy repartee and taut suspense that would give the narrative some thrill amid the melancholy.

The signature San Francisco atmosphere, however, is perfectly charming, particularly the meet-cute romance scenes between Henry’s parents, captivating memories evoked in tales spun by the elderly Leena (Keiko Shimosato Carreiro).

Alexander V. Nichols’ scenic design is so steeped in the terrain of the city, a spare canvas dotted with telling details, that it makes you want to linger longer amid its romance and shadows. From Lucca Deli to Land’s End, the play is a theatrical walking tour of San Francisco.

If only the central characters were as compelling as the ghosts of the past here. When Henry tries to piece together his recollections of his father’s last days, Chen carves out real insights about the way our parents are always mysteries, particularly their lives before we arrived.