I have always had a problem with an audience member or the “critics” at large making bald statements about a play or an actor. I believe it to carry an air of arrogance for anyone to think that their reaction to a play is the same for everyone. A play is a visceral experience, and hits my buttons, pulls my chain, vibrates my chakra centers, or it doesn’t. Or I should say the actors do or don’t hit, pull or vibrate my being into deep reflection or cathartic emotional release. As you can tell, I am a huge believer in the power of live theatre to move its audience on a cellular level. But it is an individual experience, so here is my (re) View.
World premiere play by Liz Flahive
Directed by Leigh Silverman
with Seth Clayton, John Ellison Conlee, Edie Falco, Brooke Ashley Laine, Heidi Schreck, Frances Sternhagen, Phoebe Strole and Christopher Evan Welch
This play did not touch anywhere near where I live. I was left feeling an ennui, a confusion, and a slight bitterness. It was almost as if someone had taken an afternoon to take me on a long drive to show me some road kill. Why?
Edie Falco plays Martha, a kindergarten teacher who abandons her job, husband and daughter to camp out at a hotel called Madrid. She eventually comes home at the final hour. I could not feel this character. I had no sympathy, though as a working mother, I certainly should have. Falco is a TV actress (I am a big fan), but from my body-view, TV and film actors have, at times, trouble reaching a live audience. The layers of complexity leading to a desperate move like Martha’s, have to be felt by the audience. Those layers of depression, desperation, and the ultimate exhilaration of freedom have to travel across the stage like sound waves, orfeeling waves, and hit the audience like the sounds of a tuning fork. There is no camera, no editing room, no music to do that for you. The actress has to be able to turn up the volume energetically. I was left seeing a selfish action, but feeling no compassion for the character. Ok, when she danced her freedom dance in the kitchen, I did feel something. I know that kitchen dance!
One character I could feel, though the playwright chose not to allow him any emotional arc or release, was her husband, played by John Ellison Conlee, who managed to reach me with his broken heart. His imploded heart chakra sang to my imploded heart chakra for a few seconds. I think his resignation in the face of his wife’s actions left me resigned as well. And this is life. So maybe I left feeling the way the playwright wanted me to feel. Sigh.
Frances Sternhagen, Martha’s mother is also a strong stage presence;her ironic wit was filled with a bitterness that I could understand. Especially when I left the theatre feeling abandoned with feelings unearthed but not expressed.
I have high expectations for theatre. So this is a very particular and individual (re)view from my lucid body.
Fay Simpson
Founder of The Lucid Body