Michael Rinaldi’s character is a real-estate agent with a brand-new fauxhawk and a pierced eyebrow. He’s trying hard—really, really hard—to be cool, which, of course, makes him a goof. But in the world of Jason Bryden’s new script, The Dissemblers, the other characters are so much more cynical in their lies and successful in their posing that goofy Simon ends up looking pretty appealing.

The Dissemblers, which is Bryden’s first play, runs in a Touchstone Theatre production at the Playwrights Theatre Centre Studio from May 2 to May 10, with a preview next Thursday (May 1).

The story is about an artist named Dashel who has survived cancer and claims to attack everything in his life with relentless honesty—everything, it seems, except his artwork and his personal relationships. Simon is Dash’s best friend.

Chatting to the Straight outside the rehearsal room, Rinaldi says, “I hope I’m right, but from the first reading out loud, I felt like I kind of knew Simon.” Asked how he resembles his character, he replies, “Oh, I think I can be pretty earnest. And I can be pretty dorky too.” He adds that, like most of us, he can relate to a guy who’s trying to save a friendship that seems to be surviving on little more than habit and memories of good times long past.

Apart from this immediate sense of kinship, Rinaldi says that he’s exploring his character from the outside in. “I know what his hair looks like, and his clothes,” he begins. “He’s got the skinny jeans, which kind of hurt to wear. And his shirt’s a little too tight, so it makes him conscious of his muffin top, which he tries not to pay attention to.”

Rinaldi is a gifted comic actor, and he has already started working on shtick: “We’re trying little bits of awkwardness with the phone and the briefcase. I’ve never had a Bluetooth, so we’re working that out. And Simon tries to use suave moves like sitting on his desk and expounding about real estate, but then he sits on his phone—and his jeans are still too tight.”

After the moment of discovery, maintaining faith in this kind of material throughout the rehearsal period can be dicey. “I love the physical stuff,” Rinaldi says, “but it’s also painful, because it ceases to be funny for a long time. It’s not like verbal humour, which, even if there’s no audience, you can tell that it’s going to work.”

The Dissemblers, which is a satire of pretentiousness, comes from an author who is very good at looking hip. (Check out Bryden’s groovy Web site at www.jbryden.com/.) Rinaldi agrees that the playwright is slick but adds that, working on this project, “I’ve seen that J. B. is kind of like the play: there’s more to him than you might think. He’s got cool clothes. He’s got cool shoes. He’s got neat taste. But it’s not just that. He’s not just a surface guy. His vocabulary and conversation are very different than average. It’s like he’s got a thesaurus in there. I’ve always wanted to be one of those guys.” Simon speaks.