Review: Lost Land by Wogglebug Theatre

Review: Lost Land by Wogglebug Theatre
by Michael Meigs

Jenny Kokai's Lost Land is engaging and entertaining but unfocussed, a multifold parable in which a sunken fiberglass whale is the narrator. Four stories are anchored at one place: "Lost Land," a lake at the center of a Disney-style theme park. The stories are widely separated in time.

The unseen leviathan narrator speaks either from outside time or from some date far in the future. Fred Bothwell is the voice of "Moby," a resigned, lightly humorous chorus slowly disintegrating in the depths of the waters. Three other stories are developed seriatum over the course of the evening:

-- In the 1950's with the Lost Land park in operation, two young women take jobs as wharf rat characters. They emerge periodically to hug visitors and to sign autographs. In the park's employee changing room, one impulsively kisses the other. Their mutual attraction confuses them. They lose their jobs when the theme park goes bust. One woman plans breathlessly for a little home and family in the suburbs; the other can't imagine such an existence but can't articulate an alternative, either.

-- At some other time, possibly contemporary with us, a young career woman is planning a real estate development around the lake. The theme park buildings have decayed and mostly disappeared. Having learned she's pregant, the woman sheds an unwanted boyfriend and elects to become a single mother. The baby girl's congenital defects require lengthy neonatal hospital treatment and surgery. Nurses intervene coolly, keeping the mother at a spirit-killing distance from the child.

-- At some future date after global catastrophe, a young man named Brown Bear lives in primitive conditions next to the lake. Minder, a wandering young woman, shows up. The two distrust one another at first but gradually come to an accommodation. We learn through their exchanges that the world has been devastated by plague. Eventually the young woman begins to show signs of the disease.

Matthew Butterfield, Sarah England

This is an ingenious plot, well supplied with engaging moments. A messy lipstick kiss between the park employees; a charming Mommy-and-daughter story moment in which we see a princess and the wizard; Matthew Butterfield's big-eyed declarations as Brown Bear, trying to sound grown up even though no adults have survived to hear him; and the rumbling commentaries of "Moby," slowly disintegrating in the depths.

Even so, playwright Kokai may have taken on too much, for she does not achieve the same depth in the stories. Most clearly realized are those of Moby and of the two refugees from future plague, for which Kokai provides context, commentary, and images.

The other stories lack history, context and voice. The two attractive young women from the 1950's resemble network television characters in Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best. The 1950's were indeed an innocent time, but these characters don't have even the self awareness of Lucy and Ethel in the long-running I Love Lucy. Neither appears to understand same-sex attraction or to have the ability to imagine an alternative to the American Dream. Sharper language and more overt conflict between them might have given them greater substance.

In the contemporary story the career woman is much more in control of her life decisions. Even so, her lines and language don't "talk the talk" of a businesswoman. Her real estate chatter is unconvincing. We don't perceive of her as powerful, even in the odd scene in which she pushes a piece of paper across the table to her -ex, telling him that his signature, unwitnessed and unnotarized, will relieve him of all paternal obligations. The actress might have successfully have adapted a more aggressive tone in her dealings with him and later with hospital staff, but Kokai doesn't give her enough history or attitude to share with us.

Several scenes were played at a table or similar setting at extreme downstage right. In the Blue Theatre's stadium-thrust seating plan, this meant that actors delivered lengthy stretches with their backs turned to two-thirds of the house. Director Kokai could have cheated actors' positions in those scenes or instituted sufficient movement so that spectators didn't feel deprived.

(ALT photo) The stories overlap during the evening, but so do the cast members. Five of the eight play multiple characters in the three principal stories, and characters are identified in the program only by first names. As a first-time viewer I was unable to match most actors with remembered performances, even after reducing the odds by process of elimination. The many-hatted Joseph Garlock was impressive as the bad boyfriend, the employer, the wizard, the doctor and others, and I liked the sweet pluck of both women park employees. And the young woman who played the girl at story time gave a lovely presentation of droll and guileless childhood.