"ELOISE & RAY," Roadworks Productions at Chopin Theatre
BY LUCIA MAURO
Strip Stephanie Fleischmann’s time-shifting play, "Eloise & Ray," of its interactive video projections, rhythmic language and stylized brutal-tender movement, and all you’re left with is a pile of weathered cliches. Like the three characters in this extremely self-aware dream play, audiences can feel stuck and bored -- waiting in excruciating agony for the time to pass. Roadworks Productions, premiering Fleischmann’s new work at the Chopin Theatre, has dressed up this wisp of a symbol-clogged poem to the metaphoric nines. Sadly, it has nowhere to go and, over the course of 90 minutes, goes nowhere.
Director Kim Rubinstein, closely attuned to the abstract-psychological timbre of the piece, presents us with impressionable, multisensory images of fragmented memories. Yet the result is as empty and disconnected as the ditch 16-year-old wild child, Eloise, finds herself after getting thrown out of her father’s house. The play really isn’t ABOUT anything. So it seems trivial to discuss the plot (even though the plot offers compelling possibilities for drama not found in this play). The playwright – who, as a child, moved to California from England – is trying to capture an elusive notion on stage: the allure and detachment of open spaces.
But, in a more literal sense, "Eloise & Ray" is set in the nondescript town of Ovid, Colorado (yes, "Metamorphoses" could be the subtitle). Eloise works at a grocery store, where she meets the older Ray – a man who smells of horses. Ray, who was her brother Jed’s best friend, did time in prison for a jewelry-store robbery he committed with Jed. But, according to Ray, Jed fled the scene and left Ray to pay the price. Ray returns to corrupt Jed’s sister, Eloise – and, instead, falls in love with her. Eloise, still hurt from her brother’s abandonment, just wants to get out of town – especially after living in the troubled household of her father and his controlling lover, called the Actress.
But rather than a well-made play, we get both a live drama and film projections on chronic rewind. Frankly, Logan Kibbens’ video design – while provocative as a stand-alone exhibition – is not integrated into the show in a groundbreaking way. The predictable scenes of rural desolation and a self-conscious playing with scale (e.g. Ray’s screen door growing taller behind Eloise like a scene out of "Alice in Wonderland") only add to the work’s heavy-handed symbolism. It’s also not very impressive to watch actors interacting with film by merely strolling down a country road projected behind them. Filmic elements are not always the answer to attracting those elusive young audiences.
However, scenic designer Geoffrey M. Curley’s stained wooden doors built into the wall and lit with distressed shadows by Jaymi Lee Smith make a more crushing statement on hopeless desolation. Andre Pluess’ and Tim Hill’s original inverted western-style score also courses sadly through this production’s anguished soul.
But these are fragments of poetry in an otherwise flat and self-indulgent production, rife with chronic "falls and recoveries" and stream-of-consciousness flashes for their own trendy sake. Danny McCarthy, an actor of assured and honest instincts, brilliantly transcends Ray’s stereotypical "hick" demeanor. His Ray expertly blends debilitating flaws and heroic qualities with quiet grace.
On the other hand, Laura Scheinbaum as Eloise tosses nuance to the tumbleweeds – favoring, instead, a shrill and grating characterization that makes Eloise thoroughly unbelievable. She comes across as an over-eager actress reading her lines at the same hyper pitch – not a young girl bridging that terrifying gap between childhood and adulthood. Jacquelyn Flaherty as the Actress has little more to do than strut around in lingerie like a floozy and smoke.
"Eloise & Ray" is the sort of play that would work better as a short story. Fleischmann is a lovely writer, and her water/sand and oyster/pearl imagery can bring a tear to one’s eye – its paradoxes are so gracefully lush. But the relentless repetition of these images on stage grates on one’s nerves – especially in a production that favors style over substance.
Roadworks Productions’ staging of "Eloise & Ray" runs through February 23 at Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division. Tickets: $18-$22. Call 866-468-3401 or log onto www.roadworks.org.
