Reviews: Crooked by Catherine Trieschmann. Directed by Russ Banham. With Zoey Cane Belyea, Mariah Caine Ware and Jena Cane. Now through February 12 at Theater Schmeater.14/48 Theater Festival. Produced by One World Theatre, 3-Card Monty and the Central Heating Lab at ACT. Written, Directed, Designed, Performed by the Ensemble. At ACT January 7/8 and 14/15.
Zoey Cane Belyea, Mariah Caine Ware and Jena Cane in Crooked, by Catherine Trieschmann at the Schmee. Photo: D Hastings
I’ve had a long weekend. From Thursday to Sunday I saw six stage shows including two days with double headers. Uncle Strangeways needs a nap…or, learn to pace himself. Or, not to over commit himself…Happily, my Friday night theater double header featured two winners in Theater Schmeater’s new production of Crooked, by Catherine Trieschmann, and with the second weekend performance of 14/48, the “world’s quickest theater festival”. Both had a lot of charm and wit, not to mention some tight writing and killer performances.
We’ll kick off with the Schmee’s Crooked, a three hander about a divorced mom, her precocious but psychically wounded 14 year old daughter, and the daughter’s new best friend, a home schooled, Christian Fundamentalist 16 year old who thinks she has “invisible stigmata”. And, it’s set in Mississippi. Yeah, I rolled my eyes, too, when I read the plot for this play; it set off a lot of warning bells in my head. I’m not keen on “coming of age” stories about precocious teens and their inner and outer turmoil, and I’m even less keen on Southern Gothic corn pone featuring Fundies and the Power of Jesus. Oh, and the precocious but wounded daughter? She has Dystonia, a muscular condition which results in a hump back appearance. That’s a lot of baggage for one play to handle and going into the theater, I had me some doubts.
The doubts were quickly dispelled based on the sharp, naturalistic writing of Ms Trieschmann and her ability to craft believable dialogue and meaningful relationships between the three characters while maintaining a firm hold on a plot that could easily become melodramatic in lesser hands. Newly divorced mom Elise has relocated to her Mississippi hometown with her daughter Laney, a bright, intellectually gifted writer with an active imagination and a fragile psyche following her parents’ divorce. Laney is also inflicted with dystonia, which isolates her from her new classmates and her only new friend is Maribel, a sweet and rather simple 16 year old who’s also having a hard time adjusting to public school after years of home schooling with her Christian Fundamentalist family. Liberal mom Elise is suspicious and disdainful of this friendship and Laney’s over active imagination and tendency to exaggerate or lie about incidents in her life soon leads to conflicts between the three characters. The play, like real life, ends with many of those conflicts unresolved.
With poor actors, this material could easily be overwhelmed and appear trite and soap opera-y. But, all three actresses in this production are well-cast and give excellent, naturalistic performances. Jena Cane’s Elise is a believable, modern, liberal mom; likable and laid back but far from perfect and prone to suffocating her daughter with emotion. Ms Cane’s wry delivery, and ease at portraying a casual contemporary mom is nicely contrasted with scenes where she has to reveal her inner demons and frailties. Elise hides these fears under a veneer of wise cracks, bemused banter and frequent sips from her wine glass, but she is as emotionally crippled and stunted by her past, as her more obviously damaged daughter. It’s a compelling performance by a gifted actor.
Even more surprising, are the performances of the two actresses playing the teenaged girls. Both Mariah Caine Ware, as Laney, and Zoey Cane Belyea as Maribel, are young, not much more than 20 or so, but they give powerful, believable performances as naive, teen characters that never seem fake or contrived. Ms Ware has the larger role; the play centers on her character, and she is fully able to command the audience’s attention with her work. Laney is a difficult role to portray. The character isn’t always very likable; she has tantrums and fits and is prone to violent mood swings. But, the actress manages to work within the parameters of the character, both her good qualities and bad, to fashion a fully realized and realistic creation. Her scenes with Ms Cane as her mother, are truthful and raw and emotionally complex.
Zoey Cane Belyea might have the toughest role of all. It’s tough to pull off playing a sweet but slightly dimwitted Southern character without falling into cliche and mannered extremes. But, the young actress is able to work within the established parameters of the character and flesh her out and visualize the character into a believable reality. Her Maribel might be naive and a bit simple, but she is never stupid and is capable of thinking for herself. It’s a charming performance from a charming young actor.
I wasn’t a huge fan of his last two productions, (Mauritius at Seattle Public was ok, but Henry V at Seattle Shakes was a mess.) but director Russ Banham has done an excellent job of staging this tightly wound piece in the tiny confines of the Schmee’s basement theater and creating a realistic, conversational, fully realized world on a small budget with a simple setting.
I did end up enjoying this play and this production very much, but have to note that it’s not a “perfect” show. The ending seemed abrupt and unresolved, like the author had run out of steam, and of the two acts of this play, the first was by far the stronger. The “Second Act” dilemma has plagued many a writer, and while it doesn’t wreck the play, it does diminish it and keep it from being as powerful as it could be. The talents of Ms Trieschmann are still strongly apparent, however, and any future work should be eagerly anticipated.
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Curtain Call for 14/48.
Crooked got out at 10pm and I raced down Pike Street to catch the 10:30pm show for 14/48, the world’s quickest theater festival. For those of you who need reminding, 14/48 stages 14 brand new 10 minute long plays over the course of 48 hours, (ergo the title of the festival) and it’s a theater nerd’s treat. You really can’t go wrong with attending any of these productions. The plays are only 10 minutes long, so if it sucks, or, it’s not your sort of play, it ends quickly and you’re off to the next piece. Every night of the festival has a theme, and Friday’s theme was “Worse Than Death” and happily, none of the plays could be described as such. The first act consisted of four comedies, of varying degrees of success, with my favorite being Matt Smith’s “Bridezilla and the Monster Dimension” directed by Greg Carter and concerning a very silly plot involving a newly married couple, her sock puppet best friend, and a trip inside the Monster Dimension referred to in the title. It relied a bit too much on “Rocky Horror” schtick but the cast of Benjamin Harris, Kate Kraay, Teri Lazzara, Dawson Nichols and Don Darryl Rivera was having enough fun with the ridiculous material to make it seem fresh and new.
More successful were the three Act Two pieces, all dramas. Elizabeth Heffron’s “Recall” was a slice of hell set in the visitor’s lounge of a woman’s prison where prisoner Annette Toutonghi had to face facts that her family was crumbling while she served her time. It was well acted by the cast and tautly directed by Richard Ziman. Also quite good, was Jonah Von Spreecken’s “The Empty Flock”, his vaguely Godot-esque look at some vaguely Victorian/Steam Punkish paid mourners at a funeral. It managed to be equal parts Beckettian/Orwellian/Gilliamian yet uniquely personal and was well directed by Brian Faker with strong performances from Shawn Belyea, Alyssa Bostwick, Jason Marr, Lisa Viertel and Jodi-Paul Wooster.
My favorite piece of the night was Brandon J. Simmons, “Kites” directed by George Mount. Yes, it was set in Heaven, and yes, it featured kite-flying as a metaphor, and yes, it SOUNDS contrived, but in execution it was cleverly written, mounted and performed by Deniece Bleha, Trick Danneker and Amy Hill as a polyamorous trio who have to adjust to their new “lives” in the hereafter. All three of the dramatic pieces succeeded as individual works, and all three seemed like they could be expanded into larger and more elaborated upon works. Maybe we should be on the lookout for the 90 minute rewrites of “Recall” or “Kites” coming to a fringe theater near you, in the for see able future…
As for 14/48, be on the lookout for it, in its summer edition, probably in August of this year. It’s a winner.
