Anthony Bowden, Maria-Christina Oliveras
and Tonya Glanz. Photo by T. Charles Erickson
Let’s talk about metaphors.
Essentially, a metaphor says this is this but it’s also that, it’s two mints in
one. Yes, that’s a tree, but it also represents a family, and as the tree rots
so does the family. For metaphors to work, there has to be some underlying
connection, some visual or sensory link – ah, a tree grows, spreads and dies,
like a family, because the roots are infected. Got it. Think of Willy Loman, in
“Death of a Salesman,” trying to plant a garden, new growth, in soil that will
no longer support life. Got it. It works. Why this discussion? Well, when a
metaphor doesn’t work, when there’s no association, no underlying connection, it
leaves you scratching your head, asking what does a rutabaga have to do with
insider trading, or space aliens have to do with weight loss? Hence the head
scratching as you leave Long Wharf’s Stage Two after sitting through the
premiere of “January Joiner,” a play by Laura Jacqmin that intrigues, entrances
and...leaves one asking…what the hell?
This is a slick, stylized deftly
staged and directed production of a play that should have been vetted, and by
that I mean someone should have asked Jacqmin: “What are you really trying to
say?” We are in Florida ,
at an up-scale weight-loss spa, where three people have come to lose weight or,
in the parlance of the play, change their images. This will be accomplished
through a rigorous regimen of exercise and the limited consumption of things
most people don’t, on a regular basis, find edible, overseen by two slim
trainers who have their own body issues.
Stage Two’s foyer is plastered with
posters dealing with obesity and food obsession, and the program is littered
with detailed information about body weight and eating disorders, but that
really isn’t what the play is about. It’s about relationships, and when it
deals with these relationships (sisters growing up “fat,” trainers obsessed
with their bodies, physical attraction measured by weight and size), the
production is intriguing and, at times, trenchant. Obesity and sizeism (is that
a word?) are important, multidimensional topics on their own, but Jacqmin has
chosen to add a layer of surrealism that simply confounds. We have a talking
and vengeful vending machine, which stands, I imagine, for the advertising and
marketing efforts of companies that wish to sell “food” as a release and cure
for angst and anxiety. Understood. But then there are creatures who appear and
wreak havoc – and who are they? It’s not clear. We tumble into a world that takes
us far, far away from topic Jacqmin has chosen to deal with.
The program guide offers a quote
from Thomas Sipos’s “Horror Film Aesthetics” that seeks to justify what goes on
in this production, but horror films must, if nothing else, have an inherent
logic, and “January Joiner” doesn’t. This is unfortunate, since the cast
members are, by and large, stellar, and they work to create moments of magic –
this is especially true of Terry (Ashlie Atkinson) and Myrtle (Meredith
Holzman), two sisters, who share moments of intimacy and antagonism, and the
two trainers, April (Tonya Glanz) and Brian (Anthony Bowden)), who deftly
capture characters who are entranced by their body images and all that these
images imply.
Director Eric Ting, who seems to
get the nod when a Long Wharf plays is a bit off the beaten track, keeps things
moving, and set designer Narelle Sissons and lighting designer Stephen
Strawbridge, support the overall sense of danger inherent in focusing on body
image above all else, but this is a play that stumbles over its own images,
graphic as they may be. The first act ends with a “What just happened?” moment.
The second act wanders into never-never land to offer an explanation of sorts,
in the process losing sight of the basic tension, which is how does society influence
how we view our bodies?
There’s a lot in “January Joiner”
to chew on. Just be careful that you don’t try to bite down on something that’s
a bit too hard to swallow.
“January Joiner” runs through Feb.
10. For tickets or more information call 203-787-4284 or go to
www.longwharf.org.
-- Geary Danihy
No comments:
Post a Comment