Theater
BLUE/ORANGE Presented by Actors Bridge Ensemble Through Feb. 16 at the Schroeder Black Box Stage THE PILLOWMAN Presented by GroundWorks Theatre Through Feb. 16 at Darkhorse Theater DEATH AND THE MAIDEN Presented by People’s Branch Theatre Through Feb. 16 at the Belcourt Theatre
Whether zeitgeist or pure coincidence, three local theater companies opened plays last weekend that in varying degrees focus on elements of torture, totalitarianism or high-pressure interrogation. In each instance, the goal is the determination of truth, insofar as language and circumstances allow.
Actors Bridge Ensemble’s Nashville premiere of Blue/Orange has less to do with politics and more to do with class, race and professional one-upmanship. Joe Penhall’s taut drama is brisk, particularly considering that it plays out over three fairly long acts. The setting is a British mental hospital, where a black man named Christopher is being held for observation and evaluation. On the surface he appears normal enough, but upon closer questioning by young Dr. Flaherty, he claims that he is the son of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and that be believes the color of oranges to be blue. Flaherty wants to admit Christopher for longer-term treatment and seeks the approval of the older consulting physician, Dr. Smith. Hereafter, the playing field shifts uneasily, and the greater battle emerges between the two doctors, whose disagreements seem rooted more in bureaucratic gamesmanship and power plays than in concern for their patient.
Each act is defined by intense inquisitions—doctor/patient, doctor/doctor—laced with occasional psychiatric jargon, literary allusions and, more critically, incendiary personal accusations that push the emotional debate into murkier waters.
The verbal sparring takes place on set designer Don Griffiths’ cool, ice-blue flooring, which confines the players like the combatants in a boxing match. The performances, under the direction of Nashville newcomer Kate Al-Shamma, display a keen awareness of Penhall’s sharp-edged ironies and enigmatic motivations. Jon Royal as the patient, Brandon Boyd as young Flaherty and Bill Feehely as the older Smith navigate the psychological land mines with a solid ensemble feel.
GroundWorks Theatre’s The Pillowman, also a local premiere, offers another psychological conundrum, this one with distinctly grisly content. Playwright/screenwriter Martin McDonagh’s quick-clipped dialogue intriguingly and inexorably propels his tale about a short-story writer who is hauled in for questioning by detectives in a totalitarian state. The writer, named Katurian Katurian—who also works in an abattoir—is a suspect in a string of child murders, mainly because his stories lay out scenarios that mirror the killings.
Death and the Maiden
Nate Eppler’s literate but animated performance as Katurian anchors the production, which is directed with general competence by Megan Murphy. Dietz Osborne and Jack Chambers are the cops, and they are often physically menacing as well as emotionally manipulative. Alex Vernon also weighs in with an affecting performance as Katurian’s slow-witted brother, Michal, who plays a linchpin role in the plotting of creepy events.
For all its horrific undertones, The Pillowman emerges as a dark fantasy, set in its own self-contained world, where a gallows humor coexists with the grimmest of human activities. McDonagh’s bleak, tightly written script gets its due in a successfully disconcerting mounting.
Finally, People’s Branch Theatre presents Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, an older, better-known theater piece. Dorfman, formerly an official in the Chilean government of Salvador Allende, was forced into exile in the early 1970s after a military coup in which Augusto Pinochet seized power. The author draws on his experiences to craft this tale about an incident in a post-totalitarian setting in which a woman, raped and tortured many years before under the old regime, recognizes a man she believes to have been her attacker. That the man is a respected doctor and known to her husband adds to the tension as the woman exacts her revenge.
Erin Whited gives us an appropriately earthy and nervous portrayal as Paulina Escobar, robbed of youthful ambitions by the forces of past tyranny and now seeking vengeance. As her husband Gerardo, Chip Arnold is the man in the middle—he doesn’t believe his wife and assumes the role of the accused man’s de facto defense lawyer, yet attempts to find a means to appease his embittered spouse. Buddy Raper is Dr. Miranda, and he spends a good deal of the evening bound and abused, serving as the focal point of Dorfman’s thorny proposition: Is he guilty or not?
Death and the Maiden is gloomy fare, leaving little room for humor and mostly dedicated to exploiting its black premise. The performances, under the direction of Ross Brooks, are quite credible and always well-paced. It’s a seriously heavy drama for theatergoers who like their politics served with a distinct edge.
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