“Think of this show as a series of dreams over the course of
the night,” the audience was instructed before the mesmerizing, multi-sensory
performance of “Sure-Minded Uncertainties” at the TheatreROCS Stage on Sunday. Presented by CaveDogs (cavedogs.org),
the show featured large-scale shadow projections layered with video imagery and
an engaging original soundtrack.
Depicting the balance between technology and nature, the
production immersed the viewers in the dreamy drift between the activities of a
tree puller, a storyteller, a tailor, and a scientist. Each shapes the shifting
world, which is constructed by the layered silhouettes of live actors, paper
cutouts, and objects. I’m bummed that this one was only performed once!
I’m also bummed that the brief play, “Conscience,” was
performed only once during the Fringe (at MuCCC), and
I hope that Rochester audiences will have the opportunity to see it in the
future. The production is a dramatic reenactment of the testimony given by
Elizabeth Good (played by Caroline Yeager) when called by her son, Bob Good
(played by himself), who was on trial in 1973 with the rest of the Camden 28.
The group of conscientious objectors were arrested in 1971
while raiding a Camden, New Jersey, draft board, and stood trial after the
Pentagon Papers had already been released, and more Americans were joining the
youth in their disillusionment over America’s meddling in Vietnam.
“We do not believe that it is criminal to destroy pieces of
paper which are used to bind men to involuntary servitude, which train these
men to kill, and which send them to possibly die in an unjust, immoral, and
illegal war,” said the 28, in a group statement submitted before the trial and offered
to the MuCCC audience in a packet of useful
information.
A middle-class farm wife and admittedly against communism,
Elizabeth Good had already lost one of her 10 children to a car accident when
she received the news that her drafted son Paul (Bob’s older brother) died in
Vietnam. Between the time that Elizabeth buried her
son and was called as a witness by the Camden 28, Howard Zinn had already
testified on behalf of true patriot Daniel Ellsberg. The mother’s grief has
turned to disgust.
“I still tried to hang on to that theory that my boy died for
his country,” she says. “But after Mr. Zinn was on the stand, and he spelled it
out, ‘tin, rubber, and oil,’ that’s when I broke down in court.”
Her tearful testimony turns to an angry attack on American
priorities, blaming the comfortable, clueless middle class — of which she is
admittedly a part — who “sat aside and let them take our boys.” Yeager shifted
seamlessly between guilt, grief, chocking horror, and spitting anger,
powerfully conveying the address that helped secure the group’s freedom. The
heavy presence of history settled even more tangibly into the room as Bob wiped
his eyes when his “mom” mentioned how old his brother would have been.
My evening wrapped at MuCCC with a
semi-tedious, two-hour performance of “Mystic Castle,” a play
by Lori Marra about a reporter who interviews the
infamous Genesee River Killer, Arthur Shawcross. It
was by no means a bad show — it provides loads of fascinating information, and
the versatile Elliot Fox was a very engaging Shawcross
— but parts of it have problems.
The title of the play is derived from a fictional
conversation depicted within the show, between the incarcerated Shawcross and reporter John Ehrlich (Jesse Conklin), who
was asked by his single-minded editor, Sam (Robert Shea),
to pursue a sensational interview with Shawcross at Sullivan
Correctional Facility. Part of the dubious angle is that Ehrlich, like Shawcross, is from Watertown, New York, and was terrified
by him as an 11-year-old during Shawcross’s
early spree as a child rapist and murderer.
The editor rightly sneers at the law enforcement and court
officials who deemed it appropriate to offer Shawcross
a plea bargain — “tell us where the bodies are, and we’ll only charge you for
assaulting the little girl.” Shawcross accepted,
served 25 years, and was released on probation (which he immediately and
violently violated), and quietly relocated to Rochester (thanks a lot, court
system), where he began murdering sex workers.
The first act introduces one of the play’s problems: a rather
flat representation of Ehrlich’s relationship with his wife, who after one
failed pregnancy and her own near-death has discovered she’s still fertile, but
the clock’s a-tickin’. Part of the difficulty of
caring about their struggle is that Brianna Ehrlich (played by Rachel Oshlag) is wheedling and yet unbelievingly
over-accommodating to a kind of wince-y extent.
The other issue is that the play is an extremely long
dramatic reading, with an unnecessary narrator (Jeff Wilson) intermittently
speaking stage directions that could have been pantomimed (and are,
effectively, but some of the actors). The narrator’s voice was also sometimes
moot, when it was drowned out by different players’ yelling. But Wilson’s turn
as different kids during Ehrlich’s flashbacks worked well.
Fox’s Shawcross is intelligent and
smug, but a debilitating bitter and unstable man. Marra
and Fox did such a great job balancing his unstable behavior with severe bouts
of charm that he’s the most likeable person in the play. I was all set to
protest this representation, troubled by the manipulation, but recalled that
many people described the real man as pleasant and were shocked to learn of his
activities.
During the course of the interview, Shawcross
basically takes over the interrogation, easily manipulating the reporter into
confessions and anger. I found this to be unlikely for a seasoned professional
who purportedly works on grisly stories on the regular, but we can chalk it up
to the burnout he’s slipping into and the fact that he admits he’s still afraid
of this boogeyman. Despite pressures at home, Ehrlich’s exposure to the evils
of the world have made him reticent to bring a child into it the picture, and ultimately,
stay in it himself.
This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2015.
