Indy Theatre Habit

Last Friday night I drove downtown to the continually improving Indy Fringe building to see the Heartland Actors’ Repertory Theatre’s production of “In a Dark Dark House.”  It was written by Neil LaBute and directed by Michael Shelton.  This production is an Indiana premiere.

The title at first made me think of that deliciously scary children’s picture book by Ruth Brown: the one that takes readers through A Dark, Dark Tale to a surprising, but funny and comforting, ending.

This show is not comforting.

It’s very good, mind you, and I definitely recommend that you make time to see it before it closes this Saturday, but leave your kids at home and be prepared to think, “Huh?  Wait!  So what, exactly, actually happened to these people?” at the end.  And to chew on the show for quite a while before you feel satisfied with your experience of it.

Ultimately it IS a satisfying experience, though, and the need for chewing is one of the reasons why.

Other reasons include the excellent acting and deftly-directed pace.  Matthew Roland plays Drew, a slippery lawyer who is in some sort of rehab/jail place because he messed up with drugs and alcohol one too many times.  He needs his angry, security guard brother, Terry (Ryan Artzberger), to tell the doctors and judge about the visitor who sexually abused both of them when they were children.  The childhood abuse is Drew’s excuse for his bad behavior as an adult, but so far, the authorities are not convinced that he is telling the truth.

Terry and Drew have never been close, and Terry is surprised, now, to learn that Drew was abused, too, but he agrees to back him up.

Each man is complex, as is their trigger-filled relationship.  Both Roland and Artzberger do an excellent job of portraying the complexity.   Their work is controlled yet all-out, if that makes sense.

There is one other character, a sixteen-year-old girl named Jennifer, played by the breathtakingly sexy Rebecca Masur.  Jennifer appears only in the second act and we don’t fully understand her significance until the third, but from the moment she appears we understand that she is a naïve young woman who is having such a great time testing her feminine arsenal on men that she thinks it makes her invincible.

After the show, I heard another audience member say, “Could any girl really be that stupid?”

Her friend said, “Oh, yes.  I was that stupid when I was sixteen.  Only my guardian angels kept me from getting into trouble.”

“J” apparently has no guardian angels, and no good parent or other mentor to value her and give her advice about how to enjoy the power of her youth and attractiveness in a safe way.  Masur does an excellent job of portraying Jennifer’s semi-conscious, and therefore annoying and scary, vulnerability.

The set, designed and lit by Troy Trinkle, is lush with greenery and semi-secret, overgrown stone pathways.  Stage manager Mary Ferguson places a bench or small table or two to switch the setting from the rehab center to a miniature golf center to a wealthy homeowner’s back yard.  I loved watching a golf ball go through the top hole and come out the bottom hole of the putt-putt golf station at one side of the set!

Todd Mack Reischman designed the sound.  The musical interludes are paradoxically jagged and smooth, intriguing and inviting, jazzy but not.  I wish I knew who created and performed them.

Based on things I had heard about this show, and based on the fact that HART is presenting it in partnership with Prevent Child Abuse Indiana, I on purpose did not ask anyone to go with me so that I could feel free to cry.  I looked forward to a good, weepy catharsis.

However, my face stayed dry and my tissues stayed in my pocket.   I had the rare-for-me experience of wishing I had asked someone to see this emotional show with me – not because I wanted to “process” it but because I wanted to parse it.  

As I thought about this show on my way home, I found that I didn’t mind that it was not, for me, a vehicle for releasing the pressure of unexpressed feelings.  What I liked best about this show was that it kept surprising me.  It kept challenging my assumptions about the characters and it kept expanding my awareness of the insidious effects of child abuse.

What I like BEST about this show is that ultimately it is not “a show about child abuse.”  Or not just that, anyway.  Ultimately, it is a satisfying piece of performance art.

I would like to see it again.

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HART’s presentation of “In a Dark Dark House” continues at the Indy Fringe building through this Saturday, April 4, 2009.  Tickets are $20 for adults and can be purchased online at http://www.heartlandactors.comor by calling the box office at 317-796-2222.  High school and college students can purchase tickets for $15 with valid student ID.  Groups of ten or more can also take advantage of $15 tickets by calling the box office. 

HART is donating 50% of the proceeds from ticket sales to Prevent Child Abuse Indiana.  PCAI will be on-hand at the performances to help facilitate post show discussions and provide literature about breaking the cycle of violence and avenues of help for abuse victims.  April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. 

This show is sponsored by the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation.

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By the way, according to Lou Harry’s review of this show in the Indianapolis Business Journal, playwright Neil LaBute’s first Broadway play, “Reasons to Feel Pretty,” opens today, April 2, 2009. 

Break a leg, Neil!

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

Addendum 4/3/09 (or actually, 4/4/09 as I write this) -

I made time to see HART’s production of “In a Dark Dark House” again tonight.  It was even better the second time!   So many layers of meaning about the ripple effects of child abuse.  Such nuanced acting.

The house was full, I think, or maybe there were 2 or 3 empty chairs.  Perhaps because of all the people, I heard more laughter tonight.  At intermission, a friend who was seeing the show for the first time said he was relieved that the intensity that he had heard about was tempered with a fair amount of humor.  I agree, and I appreciate him articulating this.

After the show, another friend told me that the play made him realize that there are no unaffected bystanders in an abuse situation.  I agree with him, too.  Tonight I picked up on more of the ways that the brothers’ childhood experiences had damaged both of them, even though their experiences were different.  Mattew Roland and Ryan Artzberger convey so much, and so skillfully!

Oh, my, yes, this show is even better, even richer the second time.

I sat in the very back row this time, instead of in the very front.  Either place is good.  If you sit in the back, you don’t get to see the golf action as well as if you sit in front, but on the other hand, you get to take in what’s going on with all of the characters at once and you’re still close enough to see the details of their reactions on their faces.

Speaking of the golf scene, I love that Ryan Artzberger and Rebecca Masur are prepared to play the putt-putt scene through no matter what their golf balls do.   That little segment was completely different tonight from last Friday night, and yet it was just as smooth, just as believable.

Also, I’m sorry I didn’t say more in my original post about the admirable subtlety of Todd Mack Reischman’s sound design.  When the first bird chirped and the first car sounded on the highway outside the psychiatric hospital in the first act tonight, I mentally snapped my fingers and thought, “Oh, right!  I meant to mention all that!”  That and the construction sounds later in the play.  They all add interesting – but not distracting – aural texture to the production and make it even more believable.

Only one more performance of this show.  I’m glad I got to see it twice.

Hope