The opening monologue in Jane Martin's Talking With..., the Black Box presented by the Performing Arts Department and directed by Nicholas Petron on September 25 and 26, made the audience acutely aware that they were in the theatre. The first solo woman in a show comprised entirely of female monologues, asked the house lights to be brought up and told us, "I just needed to see you tonight." She tells how hard it is to be the entertainment, but, "on the other hand, I'm in the light." And though each of the eight actresses in the piece is the one in the light, Talking With... is the kind of show that makes the audience instant participants in its story. The actresses involved in the production made the confident, sad, quirky, crazy and talented women in the monologues come alive, and for the most part, did so in a compellingly seamless manner.
Once drawn into the idea of the production by the "actress" played confidently by Jennifer Susi, one immediately began trying to figure out how these women were connected. Each time I thought I had it figured out, the second woman, a daughter trying to piece together her feelings about mortality and family relationships after the death of her mother, stumped me. The way the program was set up, the audience was given three pieces of information about each monologue: the title, the name of the woman in the scene and where she is from, and the name of the actress portraying her and where each actress is from. This second woman, Laurie Ann Hopkins from Ellsworth, ME was played with moving, understated power by Kerry Mulligan, and she is the character who I kept returning to throughout the show. Each woman I heard after that monologue, it made me think I had figured out. There was the manic "auditioner", played with excellent, insane comic timing by Andrea Bertola, and the old woman obsessed with lamps and light and heat and whatever life she can find in them.
Then there were the women who all had interestingly singular professions, the "rodeo rider", the "baton twirler" and the "snake handler." The "rodeo rider" and the "baton twirler" both had stories about how theirs was a lost art. Karen Green had the dubious challenge of actually being a snake handler, bringing a snake forth from the box she had just been yelling at: "You're right, there ain't no God in me, I'm just a woman..." Ahhhh! I thought I had it figured out. These women were all controlled by their passions, they lived their lives for the theater, the light, the rodeo, the baton, the snakes and the religion that are supposed to be inextricably linked together, but the snake handler had separated them. But then what about Laurie Ann Hopkins, who is just trying to figure out about her mother's death?
Well, that is where the beauty of the show is, the "Ah-ha" moment in the final monologue. Marks is a monologue about a Connecticut woman who was left by her husband because he said she was "unmarked by life." She remains that way until she is assaulted in a parking lot, until she is cut and she finally gets "drops of blood on [her] beige shoes." And it is then her life begins. The woman, played with a chilling steadiness and intensity by Eileen Schellhorn, stands and displays the marks on her body, the tattoos she has snaked across her body to make visible the marks upon her life. Her skin is a reminder of everyone who has affected her, positively and negatively. And it was with this display and these striking words that the theme of the show came together for me. These are all women who have been marked. They seem like everyday women, but beneath the surface, they are marked, they are "embroidered" as the marked woman says. The final question she asks the audience is, "You understand me?" and she answers for us, "Yes, I think you do."
Talking With... was what I hoped the Black Box 1 would be: it wasn't perfect, there were moments I didn't believe, which is hard to miss when the audience is so close to the actors in such a confined space, but there were great moments in it as well. There was some fine acting, and there were moments of great acting, and as a show, it was an interesting choice that was executed with a lot of feeling and commitment. I felt like the actresses involved in the production were proud of what they were performing, and deservedly so. Black Box 1 was a promising start to the Adelphi season; the following fall productions have the bar set.
