Steph Del Rosso’s tidy domestic dramedy Precarious gets a subdued world-premiere production at Mosaic Theater, courtesy of director Jaki Bradley.
Adopting the rhythms of real life, the play camps out in the one-bedroom New York City apartment that Literacy Now staffer Tillie (Zoe Walpole) shares with her writer boyfriend Drew (Jonathan Del Palmer).
The couple also have a new roommate, suddenly and unannounced: Tillie’s chipper, inquisitive mother, Vi (Kimberly Schraf). Environmentally-conscious — though not to a fault, she’d make clear — Vi passive-aggressively moves herself in as part of her ongoing plan to shrink her suburban life.
It’s for the planet, not because she doesn’t know what to do with herself as a retired widow. So she’s sold her car, and put her house on the market. And the mindful shrinking continues once she’s installed in Tillie and Drew’s fairly minimal space. As just one measure, she takes inventory of their plastic containers, so she can dispose of them all.
In Schraf’s adept hands, Vi appears composed and firmly directed in her actions, as well as her activism. Her straightforward overzealousness is the funniest thing this play has to offer. While, at the same time, more poignantly, Vi seems lost, in the void of intense loneliness, and perhaps as a symptom of age.
In fact, the character opens with a nicely winding monologue about getting lost on her way to the apartment, revealing an endearing self-awareness that she can’t always trust her own sense of direction.
She also reveals, over the course of her stay, an almost desperate need for connection that is less endearing, but rings true in Schraf’s performance. Tillie’s mounting frustration with her mother rings true, too, in Walpole’s heartfelt, if muted, take on the put-upon daughter.
Del Rosso teasingly raises the possibility that Tillie might not have just her mother always on her back, but the universe. Tillie wonders aloud about whether her karma is cursed, after Vi’s arrival is quickly followed by the arrival of a mouse, a leak, and a citywide blackout.
Alas, though promising, the cosmic connection doesn’t amount to much in terms of story or comedy. Not even rising tensions between Tillie and Drew really shift the production’s prevailing sense of restraint. The show moves briskly from scene to scene, bouncing comfortably around Misha Kachman’s naturalistic apartment set, but without generating enough of a dynamic charge.
The issue might be that Walpole and Del Palmer seem content to just react to Schraf’s more dynamic interpretation, rather than match, or dare exceed, her energy. Moreover, neither Tillie nor Drew are written to reveal the same depth, or register similar impact, as Vi.
Essentially, it’s Vi’s play, and Schraf ensures we’re engaged, at least, and considering the woman’s humanity fully, regardless of how one might respond to, or question, her fanatical devotion to cleaning up the environment. To reach the end, however, these three characters have to get somewhere together, and, with only one driving everything, and doing almost all the hauling, there’s only just enough power on hand to make it over the line.
Precarious (★★★☆☆) runs through June 28 at Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $62 to $79, with discount options and rush tickets available for each performance. Call 202-399-7993, ext. 2 or visit mosaictheater.org.
A scintillating take on an enduringly modern musical, Signature Theatre’s Pippin succeeds as the sum of bold and exciting choices in every detail.
The lighting, the costumes, cast and orchestra, makeup, wigs, choreography, and, of course, the staging by Signature artistic director Matthew Gardiner, all appear designed and executed to realize a singular, sensual vision for the 1972 musical, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Roger O. Hirson.
A completeness covers the whole shimmering production from top to bottom. Even the stage is aglow, an in-the-round light installation from scenic designers Christopher and Justin Swader serving as center of the action.
A Confederate flag in a casket makes for a provocative and profoundly satisfying parting image in Studio Theatre's potently funny production of Purlie Victorious (A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch).
Satisfying, because as a nation, the U.S. has been trying for 160 years to bury the Confederacy and the slavery-based economy for which its proponents fought and died.
Provocative, because as we're reminded every election cycle all these years since the Civil War, those same Confederate principles, rooted in white supremacy and Black oppression, persisted in the Jim Crow South, and, apparently, still animate the politics of a too-large swath of our fellow Americans today.
Art imitates life making art in GALA Hispanic Theatre's disappointing world-premiere musical Aguardiente: Where Magic Transcends Borders. Presenting a show within the show, Aguardiente burrows into the creative process of friends and collaborators Alberto (Samuel Garnica) and Alejandro (Sebastián Treviño), struggling to create a musical that draws from and celebrates their Latino roots and culture.
Their struggle to define what they want to say is perhaps too aptly reflected in the scattered script and production of this show, directed and choreographed by Luis Salgado (GALA's Helen Hayes Award-winning In the Heights).
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