Review: Marvelous Things by Lindsey Greer Sykes
by Michael Meigs

While watching Lindsey Greer Sikes' Marvelous Things at the Blue Theatre last week, I was struck by the feeling that rather than see this gentle fantasy, I'd really prefer to be in it.  That's not unusual for those who haunt the dusty glitter of Austin stages; we've had a connection to theatre art at some time in the past so immediate and powerful that we've become performance junkies.

 

Rachel Wiese in the principal role of "Girl" and the rest of the cast had the delicate, concentrated gazes of make believe.  Characters are unnamed and emblematic; the story is an abstraction into a coloring-book version of childhood's surrender to adolescence.  The Girl has an abashed aspiring beau (Nathan Brockett) who accepts the limits she desires, physical and fantastical; she has a confidante, the "Other Girl" (Sara Harless), who's brash, gutsy and sensual; and there's the "Other Boy" (Stephen Mercantel), hormone-driven but well meaning, even so.  The Old Folks her parents are cranky and broken down by life.

 

And then there are the Girl's imaginary friends.  They perch in the upper reaches of the theatre on either wide of the playing area, back by the cellists who thrum, bow and accent the simple growing-up stories acted out at center.  During the first act you might initially mistake the six 'mechanicals' for spectators particularly captivated by the action, but then they insinuate themselves with comments, contained gestures, grimaces and vocalized melodies.  In the second half they emerge to surround the Girl, to assert their identities as Harvey, Faye Bell, Pinky, Betty, Adelaide and Goodie.  They're pure Id, moving, quarreling amongst themselves and badgering the Girl as if they were five-year-olds.

 

Dreamy, charming and almost continuously on stage, Rachel Wiese sets the tone throughout.  This work is a trope on her character's reluctance to deal with the world presented to her.  There's an adroit turn for the final scene involving Raven Fox as her child, the newest initiate in our amazing, troubling, marvelous world.

 

One needn't read Sikes' director's note on the last page of the program to recognize the playful, workshopped nature of this piece.  I'd have liked to accompany them in that process, accepted as just another big little kid in the gang.

 

Theatrical regression to childhood is not uncommon; to some extent it's inherent in the very word we use in English for the 'play' in the theatre.  Wiese herself directed The Story Seekers at the Elizabeth Ney Museum last March and accompanied visitors through the darker precincts of childhood presented in that piece.  Bastion Carboni, playing Mechanical Harvey here, featured as a member of the pretend-young flock on the Ney Museum grounds.

 

As an outsider and an observer, I found the action was longish, probably because the creative process had been one of addition and elaboration.  Cutting and tightening would have given it more impact.  Language was simple rather than lyrical or elevated. Characters are intended to be stereotypes, an understandable approach, but humans such as the Old Man (Brett Hamann) and the Old Woman (Emily Kennedy) would have won our empathy if they'd been endowed with more details of personal history.  Hamann has a strong presence, particularly in his stern, concerned-father interrogation of the Girl's aspiring suitor.  Those Oldies function as creaky obstacles most of the time, roles marked by hobbling, caricatured stiffness and stern attitude.  I was struck by the alienation between mother and father.  That broken relationship wasn't adequately explained. . . . unless the beautiful young actors simply believe the dusty adage that life isn't worth living after 30?

 

The company invites you to come early for barbecue, an invitation I should have heeded.  I'd assumed that the piece would begin at the habitual Austin hour of 8 p.m., and I came rolling into the lot at 7:15 to find that they'd been underway for a quarter of an hour.  Friendly gatekeepers urged me to slip in and settle anywhere.  I did so.  And I noted at least one other audience member attempting to be invisible as he did the same thing, five minutes later.

 

Seating arrangements at the Blue Theatre are awkward for Marvelous Things.  The center (north) section has been removed and replaced by a single row of chairs used as convenient by actors waiting to enter the scene.  Audience seating is situated on the risers to east and west of the playing space.  Actors handle that modified thrust configuration just fine but the video projected on the rear wall to the south side is mostly lost to the spectators.

 

EXTRA

Click to view the program for Lindsey Greer Sikes' Marvelous Things 

 

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Marvelous Things
by Lindsey Greer Sykes
Lindsey Greer Sykes