[NEohioPAL] REVIEW: Sweet Confinement in Canton

[Tom Wachunas]

Bathroom Blame Games
By Tom Wachunas
        …Am I my
brother’s keeper?  –Genesis 4:9-
    When a play’s
opening line is “F--k. Oh, f--k,” the proverbial red flag has been raised. Red,
signaling not just coarse language and ‘mature’ subject matter, but also blood. Lots of it.Welcome to Sweet
Confinement, a 2008 play written by Anna Carini and directed here by Johnny
Russell. The play is the inaugural production of the newly formed Parallax
Ensemble Theatre, and will be showing for one more weekend at The Kathleen
Howland Theater in downtown Canton.
    The indelicate utterance
at the beginning takes place in a pristine, dazzlingly white bathroom (set by
Kevin Anderson) as two friends – Amy and Amelia – stand dazed and dumbfounded,
staring down at a massive pool of blood on the floor. Over the course of the
next 80 minutes a total of five individuals, friends since childhood, convene ‘round
this gruesome sight as they struggle to process the trauma that brought them
here – the attempted suicide of another friend named William, who is Amy’s
estranged husband.
    In many ways William
is the true central figure in the story despite the fact that we never see him
in the flesh, though certainly in his blood. Like peeling an onion, the play
unfolds in pungent layers that progressively reveal just how much hurtful,
alienating power his troubled life (fueled by depression and drinking) has had
over that of his friends. 
    They in turn bring
their own baggage filled with dirty laundry to the occasion. This meeting in
the bathroom is surely a grim gathering of hostages. Mutual ridicule and
finger-pointing is rampant as they grapple with their guilt and grief. It’s a
veritable feasting on woulda-coulda-shouldas, spiced with moments of dark humor
as well as a few genuinely sweet reminiscences. And all the while, there’s the
constant, painfully potent imagery of Amy and Amelia slowly, v-e-r-y slowly
soaking up the blood with paper towels. But it’s never going to be completely
clean again. “There’s nothing in this room that can be fixed,” Amy disgustedly
mutters at one point, “we’re all f---ing broken.” 
    All of the cast
members are eminently well- focused and credible in delivering the individual
quirks and nuances of their characters. Rachel Callahan is the earthy, volatile
and otherwise mouthy (and not so silver-tongued) Amelia. Angeleina Valentine is
Ginger, a tender-hearted people pleaser. Christopher Hisey plays the sullen,
hardened Caleb, who has always longed for Amy and thinks they’re all better off
with William out of the picture. Justin Edenhofer is the distant Josh, Amy’s
brother and ex-best friend of William.
    But it’s Moriah
Ophardt, in her role of Amy, who most stunningly, most convincingly embodies
the struggle to reconcile compassionate understanding with her awful
brokenness. While there are some very effective scenes of explosive tension
between various characters here, none is more utterly volcanic, more searing
and real than hers when, collapsed on the bathroom floor with just her brother
present, she breaks down into heart wrenching sobs of rage and pain.  
     All of these
honest, compelling (and sometimes glib) portrayals bring to mind the somewhat
poetic ordinariness of characters in stories by the great Russian dramatist,
Anton Chekhov, in what he called his “theatre of mood.” Though it’s true that
righteous moralizing or sermonizing was largely antithetical to his influential
aesthetic, I’m not convinced that the world needs yet another play about the
human condition as essentially cheerless as this one is, no matter how
excellently performed.
     It’s certainly a sobering examination of the
spiritual ineptitudes that undermine our capacity to connect with one another
in an ultimately affirming or lasting way. At the same time it offers little in
the way of a substantial respite from the ills it so relentlessly uncovers. The
play seems instead to settle into mere, albeit intelligent infatuation with the
emotional and psychological dysfunctionalities of its characters. Call it a theatre
of pathology. 
 
    Sweet Confinement, at The Kathleen
Howland Theater, 324 Cleveland Avenue NW, downtown Canton. Shows at 8:00 p.m.
on Friday, Sept. 28 and Saturday, Sept. 29, Sunday Sept. 30 at 2:00 p.m.
Tickets are $12 at (330) 451 -  0924, or  www.secondapril.org/sweetconfinement
    For other reviews
and commentaries by Tom Wachunas on the performing and visual arts in the
greater Canton area, please visit his blog, ARTWACH, at  www.artwach.blogspot.com 
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