A massive, raging storm bears down on a small, eastern Washington state town. Devoutly Christian and pregnant mother Carol (Kate Eastwood Norris) and her equally devout husband, Gabe (Cody Nickell), give thanks to the Lord for their blessings and pray that He will protect their home and family from the ravages of the coming tempest. As becomes apparent relatively quickly, it’s with some good judgment that Carol and Gabe should put their faith and fate in God’s hands: it might take a miracle to survive the onslaught of gale force winds, biblical rains, fallen trees, storm-tossed deer, and the unexpected arrival of their adult daughter, Cynthia (Caroline Dubberly), who also happens to be very pregnant with her first child in Clare Barron’s Baby Screams Miracle (), now at Woolly Mammoth.
Since Gabe can’t seem to fix anything around the house without breaking something else — usually some part of his body — it’s a good thing Carol’s sturdy mother, Barbara (Sarah Marshall), is on hand to help batten down the hatches and keep an eye on the couple’s nine-year old daughter, Kayden (Mia Rilette). As the storm hits, bringing floods and power outages, the loving but fractured family huddles together, forced to rely on each other for safety, mostly united in their faith that the Lord will see them through any ensuing devastation. They will need more than prayer, however, when close quarters, frightening circumstances and Cynthia’s inscrutably aggressive behavior, especially towards young Kayden, all threaten to stir up more dirt and devastation than any random weather event. These are extreme times, as Grandma Barbara wisely remarks.
Howard Shalwitz stages the extremely windswept action via an evocative mix of multi-layered lighting, sound and video design (crafted by, respectively, Autum Casey, Palmer Hefferan and Jared Mezzocchi), abetted by wind machines and good, old-fashioned physical comedy. The dynamic presentation of the characters’ hostile environment adds a storybook quality of wonder and excitement to what feels like a grown-up fable about the faithful besieged by disasters both natural and familial.
A centerpiece image in Shalwitz’s production is a miniature model of Carol and Gabe’s wood-frame house, which succumbs to gusty winds and, hoisted by wires, takes off like Auntie Em’s farmhouse up, up, up over the stage. Later, in its oddly timed descent back down to the stage, the model house resembles nothing so much as Spinal Tap‘s tiny Stonehenge slowly, comically coming to rest at the actors’ feet. Given the effectiveness of the multi-media scene-setting, the dwarf house seems a misstep.
Baby Screams Miracle — Photo: Scott Suchman
Barron pokes at the existential angst of bringing new life into an uncertain world, as well as the ordinary perils of being a parent (“It’s hard, motherhood.”). With Cynthia’s strange behavior — particularly in an uncomfortably intimate, teasing game she introduces to Kayden — the play raises the decidedly more sinister possibility that some long-past or recent sexual abuse occurred in the family. But, as darkly intriguing as that possibility and its ramifications might be, the family’s secrets and tricky relationships ultimately are hard to pin down, due in no small part to deliberate obfuscation on Cynthia’s part, and the play’s too-opaque view of other characters’ motives beyond surviving the storm.
A bouncy succession of scenes, staged often as ying-yang duos (Carol and Gabe, Cynthia and Kayden, Gabe and Cynthia) pile up, as the family’s faith is tested by death, destruction and Gabe’s accident-prone attempts to secure their lives and property. Yet the underlying purpose doesn’t manifest in a particularly moving fashion, despite each cast member seizing their moment to shine.
Woolly Mammoth vets Norris and Nickell bring a compellingly salt-of-the-earth quality to Carol and Gabe, rendering their faith in God and commitment to each other as the pillars of a sweet, loving marriage of like-minded individuals. Longtime company member Marshall is a total delight channeling Barron’s looping, occasionally Beckettian rhythms through the persona of an amusingly with-it and folksy grandma. The subtle implication that, despite her grandmotherly appeal, Barbara might be the damaged root of an unhealthy family tree, comes through vaguely, yet powerfully enough to make the point.
Far more forceful in making her points, Dubberly’s Cynthia, full of rage and pain and reproach, elevated by the actor’s often melodic delivery, supplies much of the requisite tension and danger. Cynthia is the storm that bears the most ill winds, and Dubberly captures the hail of emotions that stir her to incite trouble. Unfortunately, a few fine performances and one miniature, floating house are not enough to connect this play’s disjointed narrative.
To Feb. 26 at Woolly Mammoth, 641 D St NW. Tickets are $20 to $64. Call 202-393-3939, or visit woollymammoththeatre.net.
The D.C. theater season doesn't tiptoe in -- it arrives with gale force. The Shakespeare Theatre Company leads the charge with The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Wild Duck, and a freshly mounted Guys and Dolls, a trio that underscores why STC still sets the bar for classical and modern reinvention. Woolly Mammoth continues to push boundaries with time-bending dramas and audience-driven experiments, while Theater J stakes its ground with provocative premieres that blur the line between history, satire, and survival.
If you want spectacle with edge, Broadway at the National delivers high-gloss imports from Stereophonic to Some Like It Hot. Keegan continues its fearless streak with punk-rock carnage in Lizzie the Musical and raw new work like John Doe. GALA Hispanic Theatre reasserts itself as one of D.C.'s most vital cultural players with El Beso de la Mujer Araña and La Casa de Bernarda Alba, reminding us that Spanish-language theater isn't niche, it's essential.
A cute, warm-hearted adaptation, Jocelyn Bioh's Merry Wives grabs Shakespeare by the breeches and bum-rushes him into the 21st century and the boisterous mix of Harlem's West African community. Although the Bard's play is certainly here (the program notes tell us Bioh has kept more than 90 percent of the language), there is such a strong sense of the African performance tradition that it feels quite a bit more like the lively telling of a traditional fable. There is a certain charm to this concept and execution, but it also brings a few challenges.
Right out of the box, one of the biggest is the accents. There is no question that this apparently American-born-and-bred cast does a stellar job with them, but there is also no question that it's often hard to catch some of the language Bioh has so painstakingly preserved. It may bring a pleasing authenticity, but it was up to director Taylor Reynolds to test-drive it for clarity. It isn't bad enough to get in the way of the conversational gist per se, but for those hoping to be transported on flights of aural precision, this blurring of the edges may cause some heartburn.
Matthew López felt detached. While reading E. M. Forster's classic novel, Howard's End, in New York's Central Park several years ago, the Tony award-winning playwright was inspired to write his own version of the twentieth-century tale of three British social classes intertwining during Europe's Edwardian era.
Using the essence of Forster's famous mandate from the novel, "Only connect!" López would set his version, The Inheritance in contemporary metropolitan life, replete with themes of young love, politics, sexual escapades, friendship, substance abuse, redemption, and haunting memories of the AIDS epidemic, all of which would be discussed between various generations of gay men.
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