Flotation devices . . .
review by Louis Lopardi . . . March 12, 2002
A reclusive writer rescues an unknown young lady from the sea, only to become enmeshed in a quirky love affair with her. Quirky, because he seems to be a no nonsense type at first, and yet puts up with the girl's incessant harangues about the evils in this dangerous world when it is allowed to get too close. Comfort for her lies in the secure and the repetitive; "Don't mess with patterns," she warns, "you get yourself into all kinds of trouble."
Noelle Gentile has an exceptional range for a young actress. She squeezed every bit of pathos, conflict, innocence, fright, and petulance from her well drawn character (which does bear some superficial resemblance to Franz Wedekind's maneater Lulu). One could see the waves of one emotion fleetingly crossing her face even as she verbalized the remnants of a previous one. She honestly made us wonder about the one clear question poised by the play: How much vulnerability is it safe to show? When the inevitable pregnancy occurs (no surprise there; we suspected it would happen from the start) and the "A-word" is bandied about (no surprise there either), we get the only other true question: How is the nebish-as-lifesaver going to deal with this ultimate denial of his masculinity (not to mention, of our humanity).
Luan Begetti played a nearly anesthetized recluse. He didn't have much to work with in his necessarily thin character - Considering that the man is little more than a human lifesaver, Mr. Begetti found troves of little details. He did have difficulty however projecting in the overly wide Studio-A auditorium.
Director Hallie Wynn kept Ms. Gentile moving at a breakneck speed - especially when the girl was rebounding from the horrors of a world full of sharks. ( In one scene in fact she was awfully energetic for someone who just had an induced abortion.) Yet pauses between scenes were lengthy - presumably to allow us to absorb the mood music - and the final fade was interminable.
The production had a decorative functional set, which could have better contributed by a more dynamic placement of obstacles in the actors' paths. Lighting made acceptable use of a repertory lighting plot. Sound - mostly original jazz by Tamer Tewfik - was extraordinarily well written and produced.
The writing is facile but never glib; this is clearly an author with an ear. In fact, the author has an eye as well - seeing the overall arc of the play with an almost visceral sense of changing light and shade that is conveyed to the audience. Ultimately however the same questions floated about at play's end. Today's audience also deserves some answers.
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