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A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Brilliant Traces
It's a cold and stormy night in Alaska where the winds howl and pound a tiny cabin which is the setting for Brilliant Traces at the Lounge 2 Theatre in Hollywood. There's also a hysterical pounding at the door which is finally forced open by a haggard girl in full bridal gown. She snarls and whimpers across the stage, unaware of the tall figure draped in a blanket who has loomed from the crumpled bed in the corner.
This stunning visual image opens Cindy Lou Johnson's play, directed by John Hindman who takes what could have been static and makes it zing with movement. The girl Rosannah (Tessa Ferrer) and the boy Henry (Andy Wagner) circle each other warily. She makes crazed lunges for the door, he makes equally crazed lunges to pull her back.
As the night goes by, they tell each other the stories of their lives. Equally tragic, sometimes over the top in hyperbole, as befits stories told on a cold and stormy night. We're not sure whether they are true or told to heat up the play in Henry's one-room cabin with its bare furnishings and warm wooden walls.
Rosannah seems the more distraught of the two. Henry is thoughtful but excitable. Apart from their melodramatic past lives, they hold the stage superbly.
Ferrer is dynamic, especially in her opening monologue. She prowls the stage like a half-crazed virgin, dragging her enormous soiled white gown behind her. Wagner is withdrawn, complementing Rosannah, until he erupts when goaded too far.
Zachary B. Guiler's set design is well thought out, utilizing the shallow stage to its best advantage and Jeff Polunas's sound design creates winds that howl and rage.
In this story about two loners, who are both afraid of contacts with other people for their own reasons, Ferrer gives a high strung and hysterical interpretation and is anxious to get out of there, into the blizzard if necessary. She's on the run and Henry's hovel is just a place to catch her breath and change clothes. Wagner, whose bolthole this is between stints of working on an oil rig, is used to the weather but not used to a girl. In typical male form, he gets used to it very quickly. This is a bit rough but after a year alone in Alaska understandable.
Hindman astutely keeps the pace brisk and tension high which overcomes, to a great extent, the play's melodramatic lapses. He uses physical action and confrontation to heighten the conflict, including a mad chase late in the play. The blackouts, which denote scene changes, add drama to the production.
At an hour and forty minutes, Hindman and his cast have created a microcosm of tense passion, brief but raging as the harsh winter wind.
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Title: Brilliant Traces Playwright: Cindy Lou Johnson Director: John Hindman Cast: Rosannah (Tessa Ferrer), Henry (Andy Wagner) Set Design: Zachary B. Guiler Lighting Design: Elizabeth Godley Sound Design: Jeff Polunas Costume Design: Alex Bair & Claudia Gomez Where: The Lounge 2 Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles. Reservations: (818) 508-1754. When: Feb. 3-March 11, 2012. Reviewed by Laura Hitchcock on February 3. |
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