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We started off badly, with an obnoxious suicide vaudeville from Glen Berger, "The Gallows Monologue." Then we devolved to Hilary Bell's "The Message," a medieval flavored dialogue between fairy-tale parents who had promised their first-born to a witch. From there, it was hardly possible to wander further away from our times, our fears, or our hemisphere.
But we I>couldP> do worse, and we did when Erik Ehn's "Seal Skin" sent actress Eleni Papaleonardos climbing up an expanse of roped netting, crying out "You can't abstract the sea!!" at the peak of her anguished, unfocused rant. That was the nadir, though the sentimental slop of Kirsten Greenidge's "The Joys of Childhood" provided maudlin competition.
Closer to the target was Julie Marie Myatt's "Phobophobia," a husband's boastful monologue on his ongoing police training. Combined with his role as the spectral firefighter in I>Omnium-GatherumP>, stocky apprentice Richard Furlong scored an impressive sweep of Twin Towers icons. Additional contemporary flavorings were delivered in Michael Hollinger's "Naked Lunch," where a young lady's fear of meat serves as the impediment to her date's romantic dreams. And a pizza deliveryman in Richard Dresser's "I Am Not Alone" provides screwy solace when he's greeted at the wrong address by a stranger busily botching his suicide. No, he did I>notP> order that pizza!
There's nothing particularly fresh or urgent about Cusi Cram's "Normal," a classic dialogue between homebody and adventurer brothers, but the characterizations and natural flow of the confrontation show promise. More dramatic and disturbing was Victoria Stewart's "Down to Sleep." Two grownup sisters rendezvous in their childhood bedroom, and the elder sister discloses the cause of her insomnia: failure to protect her sister from violation by their father. Instead of expiating her past negligence, revealing the forgotten abuse to her previously blissful sister seems to compound the sin.
Director Wendy McClellan admirably bestowed an aura of troubled coherence to the often wayward anthology. She effectively employed the skeletal Chris Ashworth as a mute presence all evening long before shining the full spotlight on him for the fitting finale, Stephen Belber's "Yes." Standing before us with nothing to hold onto but his own trembling hands, Ashworth confessed with memorable candor -- and absolutely no explanation -- I>"I'm just scared." P>After many detours and missteps, we arrived at Trepidation Nation at last. GRADE: C+
B>The Second Death of PriscillaP> by Russell Davis -- You can tell who the players are with your handy little playbill at the Humana Festival. But to deal with diaphanous concoctions such as I>PriscillaP>, it's good to hunt down the in-house magazine called I>inside actorsP>, which provides lengthy profiles of the playwrights and very helpful essays on the plays.
It was there that I learned that I>PriscillaP> was built on the perceived similarity between the Christian parable of Matthew 7:24-29 and the fable of "The Three Little Pigs." While it became self-evident that Priscilla had been splintered into three selves, without the assistance of my trusty I>insideP> intro, I'd never suspected that Aramanda represented our invalid heroine's physical aspect, that Coquelicot was the intellectual, and the annoyingly mute Priscilla was the spiritual piece of the puzzle.
Such inside info helped me better appreciate how fully Davis had botched the communication of his intent. While I understood the repeated importunities of the Wolf, alias Jacqueline, at Priscilla's window, it was never clear whether the woman's life or her sanity was under siege. I'm guessing that the Wolf represented the bestial chaotic part of Priscilla that our heroine was fearfully repressing at a terrible cost. But I couldn't be sure. Or deeply interested.
Eventually, after chewing all the scenery in sight, the Wolf gobbles up our Priscilla and greets her devoted boyfriend Peter in her stead. This final spectacle yielded the dubious opportunity to behold longtime Charlotte favorite Graham Smith in a sky blue summer dress. Until the wicked Wolf's triumph, Festival director Marc Masterson had Smith constantly donning and shucking a flowing pelt of a wig, delivering Jacqueline's windy oratory at a constant bellow, amplified with a body mike to irritate us all the more.
It was loud, lyrical, pretentious, and a total mess. GRADE: D+
B>Slide Glide the Slippery SlopeP> by Kia Corthron -- Twin sisters Erm and Elo were separated at a very tender age by their impoverished adolescent mother way back in the 60s. Now on the verge of their 36th birthday, the gruff reclusive Erm gets an unexpected visit at her farmstead from her long-lost twin. Elo has been devastated by the accidental death of her daughter, but she yearns to become better acquainted with her sib and brings a hefty inheritance check from their father.