Everything Will Be Different
Fifteen-year-old Charlotte's mother died so suddenly that neither she nor her father has begun to grieve. He sits before the TV with a near-empty pint of bourbon. She fantasizes about her mother who compares, in Charlotte's mind, to Helen of Troy: so beautiful that men would "die 100 times for her if they could." Charlotte wants to be like Helen, a force able to evoke love to the point of suffering. But she isn't Helen; she's Helen's left-behind daughter, Hermione: uncentered, furious at her fate, stabbing blindly outward with desperate schemes (sex with her guidance counselor, becoming a nun) for love by easy means. The title of Mark Schultz's 105-minute, intermissionless drama may be Charlotte's biggest fantasy of all. The play takes a harrowing look at a splintering psyche. In a choice that works against itself, Lynx Performance Theatre tries to push the intensities even further. The Al Germani-directed production has fine performances: Michelle Procopio as the mercurial Charlotte, flashing red, yellow, and green at once; first-rate video cameos by Joan Westmoreland and Walter Ritter (though the onstage acting is uneven and often indicated). But the evening begins with full emotion and has few places to go, and the many mini-scenes tend to blur. This would be less of a problem if the relentless production provided occasional relief, some space - or nuances, like stressing the funny lines more - for the audience to catch its breath before heading back into the fray.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, November 23, 2008
Hours
| Sundays, 8pm |
| Tuesdays, 9pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 8pm |