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Went and saw Vogel’s play at None Too Fragile on Saturday night. The location is pretty nice on Front Street, right down in Cuyahoga Falls. The space itself is small and I got a seat right up front. Being a big fan of the intimacy that comes from The Liminis, I was ready for the small space and liked sitting right up in the front. The front row seats can’t be matched for getting excellent vibes from and views of the actors.

I have mixed feelings about the use of video for the “chorus” in the play and some of the other bit parts; but I was intrigued by it, too. As the play went on the video bits grew on me some, but the hiss of the audio sometimes took me out of the “world” of the play and made me realize I was watching something and not in it. I thought Alanna Romansky (Li’l Bit’s) interaction with the video was really good though and was impressed at how they worked through the timing of the thing. I also appreciated the inter-cut highway safety videos that Derry found to put in alongside Vogel’s captions.

I think what disappointed me about the video was the second to last scene–THE scene where the first sexual abuse incident transpires. Much of what I read about this play and the techniques that Vogel uses focus on what Li’l Bit reveals in this penultimate scene: “That day was the last day I lived in my body.” This last scene is designed to emphasize the point as there are three actors representing Li’l Bit: a girl on Peck’s lap, the 30 year-old Li’l Bit, and a disembodied voice speaking her lines. All this emphasizes the point that Sarah Stephenson makes in the article I wrote a while back, “evidence regarding how sexual abuse victims conceive of themselves, foremost being the sense of separation from their physical body.” In fact, throughout the play there is an intense and obsessive focus on the body and the rejection of it–including some scenes that were cut by Derry regarding Li’l Bit at a high school dance. Still, the initial molestation scene was powerful and had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat–so, minus the stage craft of actors and voices, the scene still has great power and an ability to cause discomfort.

The actors in the video were very good. Maryann Elder who played Li’l Bit’s mother was as close to a scene stealer as one can get, I imagine, with video; as was Jim Viront, who played Li’l Bit’s grandfather. And I have to say that one impression I got of the use of video was a distinct sense of memory that I don’t think I would have gotten from the physical presence of the actors. Mary Jane Nottage (grandmother) was very good, too.

Romansky did a very good job as Li’l Bit and I was impressed by her transitions between the various ages that the character goes through. I was equally impressed with the acting of Jeffrey Glover (Peck) who layered on the southern draw of rural Maryland like honey and played Peck with the necessary compassion, strength, and desperation (loss?) that the character deserves.

I am still very disappointed in Paula Vogel for the BB molestation scene which all but ruins the character of Peck and nearly makes him cardboard. If any scene should be cut, that is the one.

I’m not keen on the drive from Cleveland, but now that the kids are getting older I can make more of an effort to get off my ass and go see some plays; I like Derry and am glad to see that he and Romansky are creating theater. I hope Cuyahoga Falls appreciates their luck at having theater like this in their front yard. Derry takes chances and that is what is needed in the all-too-often aridity of play choices (such as adaptations of nineteenth century novelists) that are the fodder for stages. Theaters today are often too much hell bent on the bottom line, which can twist your soul as Mike Daisey points out.

As Derry showed with Bang and Clatter, he’s not afraid to go broke and he’s got the balls to shake it off, stand up, and come back for more. I don’t know if I could do the same and I have to tip my hat to him for that. And he’s still giving away beer and wine, which is a bonus.

None to Fragile is doing Mamet next, and I’ll be in the audience.

I managed to get to four of the plays in Little Box this year, which is excellent for me considering the year I was in Little Box I only made it to one other than my own (K. was due with Henry virtually any day at that point). I’ll say right at the outset that the thing that characterizes the works that I say, almost universally, was their length.  My God do they need cut.  And mine did too.  So, I realize that there is an element of Karma involved here, as I was repaid for what I made others sit through two years prior.

I felt that all of the works that I saw were strong works.  So, I guess I should probably mention the ones that I went to see: Projecting, You Can See the World from Cleveland, Flock of Seagulls, and Waves.  I will talk about them each in turn, reflecting back, as I am working from memory now.

Projecting, by Rachel Baird, Directed by Jaime Bouvier, Featuring Faye Hargate.  Rachel is a classmate and, I felt, did a very fine job with this piece.  It is, I think, early in the development of it, but Projecting did some very interesting things with space and audience.  Perhaps the most transgressive action that I have ever seen in a theater occurred in this play when the lone character took a Polaroid of one of the audience members and then integrated it into the piece.  This action, along with its inclusion in the play, was perhaps the signature event of the piece, in that it dramatically re-shaped the meaning of the play almost instantaneously, as the lone character recalled the Polaroid photograph as a record of an event that happened substantially in the past (i.e. years before) when, in fact, the audience just witnessed the act of the photograph–thus throwing very much into doubt the sanity of the character on stage.  Baird describes Projecting thus:

Photographs are a way of telling stories, of tracking and keeping human histories on an intensely personal level. They are often the only real proof that a life has happened. Projection is a method of sharing these images; it is also a method of separating the self from the self, of hiding personal realities safely away in plain sight. Projecting is the story of one woman through photographs.

There are several points in this description that become interesting in light of the Polaroid.  For one, that the photographs are “the only real proof that a life has happened” of course begs the question, proof of what life?

The one that we really experience or the one that we imagined we experienced?  And is there a difference between the two?  No matter what your answer, the question is certainly raised by this play.  It is interesting, as well, that Baird notes that the “self can be separated from the self” using projection and of course this is precisely the reality that we as an audience encounter.  It is interesting, as well, to consider the term “Projecting” and its psychological implications in describing the state of ascribing to others the feelings that one has.  This state is usually a defensive posture and used to protect oneself, and the lone character in this play is clearly in a defensive state and has been, in some way, harmed: though how is unclear.  In the play, the more obvious use of projecting is the images that are shot onto the wall for the audience to consider, but clearly this form of projecting is deceptive, as the projection is actually moving the opposite direction, and thus makes for a very intriguing experience.

The use of props in this piece is equally startling, but not for their use in and of themselves, but rather what they represent as artifacts of the character’s life; and their representation of things that have passed by and gone to the great beyond.  I am, perhaps, more sensitized to this with the recent death of my grandmother and the even more recent death of my wife’s grandmother last Saturday.  This history of how we relate to each other and, especially, to those we love most in the world–and how we deceive ourselves is very much on display in this piece.

Jaime Bouvier does an excellent job of staging a play that could quickly run into the danger of boring the audience by its rather conventional format and approach: that is, one woman standing and directly addressing the audience.  But through various props and interactions with the audience, (including the distribution of small photographs of a stop light in various stages of its process: red, yellow, and green; with accompanying comments for meditation), this piece comes alive quite nicely and, but for a few long-winded points, is fresh and funny and very interesting.

The next piece on the menu this first evening I attended Little Box was You Can See the World from Cleveland Written by and Featuring Aaron Calafato. This one man show is a reflection on Calafato’s time as a struggling actor in New York City and the sort of Look Homeward Angel effect that this time had on his desires, ambitions, and ultimately decision to return to Ohio.  This piece was great fun and was, in fact, quite touching at times.  It was way too long, and at points I was simply lost as the title led me to believe the piece was about something that was simply not in the action itself: i.e. I’m watching a play about how I can see the world from Cleveland and yet all the action is taking place in New York, and is this a sad commentary on how we should view Cleveland.  The point of this action, however, becomes clear by the end of the piece, when he decides to return to Northeast Ohio, but there needs to be some attention to this ambiguous story line early on in the action to let the audience know where they are.  Calafato is very talented and very good at creating vibrant characters that are distinctly drawn.  There were moments, however, when it felt as if he was too aware of this gift and the characters were on stage just for the sake of his ability to go into them, rather than serving any purpose in the story.

Next on the list, and a week later in real-world time, was Flock of Seagulls by Stuart Hoffman.  I reflected, as I watched with a smile, on the fact that Stuart was the narrator in my staged reading at Little Box almost two years earlier.  Hoffman’s play was written by an actor who clearly would like to, as a character, sock the playwright in the eye.  This play was very much a meta-play reflecting on the relationship between character and action and plot and the relationship between the character and the audience and theatrical space. The play can, at times, be mind-bending as you try to sort out the relationship between the characters, the script, and the writer; and the awareness of the characters of the script, the writer, and the ways they can influence events.  Perhaps the funniest moment for me was the inexplicable repetition of an exchange between the characters who then realize that one of the pages in the script was actually a duplicate.  The moment of déjà vu that occurs is thus quickly and comically dissipated.  Other moments invoke the godlike nature of the writer, such as the crumpling of pages, the throwing of the script, etc.

When the play was over I asked Hoffman where he was going with the piece but he said he wasn’t sure.  I’d like to see more come of it than just some of the more slap-sticky happenings, as the subject offers some interesting potentialities for writers and actors to consider.

The final piece that I’ll discuss is Waves by Jaclyn Villano.  Directed by NEOMFA Playwright Michael Parsons and ably acted by Marla Williams, this piece explores grief as seen through the story of a mother who just lost her school-age daughter.

There is a rhythm to the piece which reflects the title, and there is a definite ebbing and flowing of energy from the script itself.  The whole is very ably written and emotionally engaging (and draining) and has an outlook that ruminates and then chooses life in the face of what I can only imagine as being the darkest moment in the life of a parent.

I have discussed with both the playwright and the director some of the issues that I have with the form of the piece, but that is only my opinion and the form seemed to work well-enough for most of the audience.  Three of the four plays I saw at Little Box took the form of direct audience address, which for some reason I find disconcerting.  I’ve discussed this elsewhere.

I’m not going to go into a detailed analysis of this play as it really would serve no purpose except to be as long an effort as the original to which it refers.  And this is where the point should be soundly made, as much to my own consciousness and to anyone else, that writing is a process and that, for the playwright, what is on stage early in the process is rarely what the audience sees as a finished product and that the process is long and hard and repetitive and that I myself put an audience full of people through a grinder several years back–all on the way to creating a better play, which I’m sure will be the case for all of these pieces in Little Box.