Nychelle Hawk (Photo by Slade Segerson)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
The Road on Magnolia
Through November 2
RECOMMENDED
In Otherkin, playwright N.T. Vandecar’s entertaining fable, a 14 year old girl (Nychelle Hawk) who identifies as a dragon is chosen by a triad of dragon gods to save humankind from impending doom.
First, the title: What is an otherkin exactly? The term came into being in the 1990s when a subscriber to Elfin Digest, a periodical for people who identify as elves (yes, this is a thing), coined the term as an abbreviation for a lengthier designation, elf/dragon/orc/etc-kin. This notion of otherness is not new. For millennia, there have been those who have identified as animal or elfin or dragon, or something other than human. Consider also the manifold cultures down through history – humanity in the aggregate — who project onto their deities animal-like traits, physical and otherwise.
In the play (developed in a Road Company playwriting workshop), one of the pivotal characters views herself as an otherkin, while three other characters, supernatural ones, play a major role in manipulating events. For non-fantasy lovers, this setup requires considerable suspension of disbelief
The setting is contemporary London, three weeks before the world is scheduled to end. Olive — born Marcy but she demands to be called Olive Bagel-heart — is new to the city. She’s recently arrived with her buttoned-up but supportive adoptive mom, Vivian (Stephanie Erb), who wants to persuade Olive’s biological father, Lucas (Justin Lawrence Barnes) — who hasn’t seen Olive since her birth — to get to know his daughter. It turns out that this is not a hard sell. Over coffee, and after a bit of nervous apprehension, Lucas agrees, and soon after becomes enthused. But his and Vivian’s plans get waylaid when Lucas conveys the existence of Olive to his drama-queen husband, Darren (Andre G. Brown). Darren is especially upset because the couple has been waiting two years to adopt a child, and the baby is finally arriving from China in two weeks-time. The timing, from Darren’s perspective, couldn’t be worse.
Complicating matters is the reluctance of the headstrong Olive to warm to a parent whom she feels abandoned her. Plus, she’s busy interacting with Howy (Arthur Hanket) a new friend on the Internet. (We learn later that he is an ancient being pretending to Olive that he is her peer.) More urgently, Olive is being contacted by the dragon gods who keep frantically messaging her about the coming apocalypse. As downpours intensify, a frazzled Olive goes on the run.
Directed by Christina Carlisi in her first directorial outing, this premiere production anchors around Barnes’s solid portrayal of a good guy attempting to steer through the chaos, first in his marriage and later, when events start to cascade, through cosmic upheaval. Some of the most entertaining scenes take place between Lucas and Darren, with Brown nailing multiple comic moments as an out-of-control chatterbox whose angst becomes everybody’s problem. Hawk’s Olive is larger than life in a positive way, an intelligent not-to-be-messed-with adolescent determined to stick to her truth. Erb gleans Vivian’s warmhearted essence, but the night I attended seemed hampered by her “British accent,” which she hadn’t quite mastered (Although not as much, this is an issue in Brown’s performance as well). In multiple roles, Hanket’s portrayals are comic and well-defined.
The “multiple roles” aspect (a choice embedded in the script rather than one made by the director) goes to one of the production’s encumbrances: having some of the actors double up in their roles, in particular when they portray dragon gods on the one hand, then switch to the depiction of the earthling characters on the other. This doubling is common in theatrical productions, and often it isn’t a problem. Here, however, its deployment somehow compounds the “suspension of disbelief” issue. This is a fast-paced narrative performed on a small proscenium, and when the same faces appear in swift succession in widely varying contexts, the effect — Sue Makkoo’s variant costuming notwithstanding — is somehow muddying.
Justin Kelley-Cahill’s scenic design employs a few basic blocks and other set pieces that get rearranged in each scene. A gray backdrop serves to display eclectic projections from designer Nicholas Santiago, with Derrick McDaniel’s lighting and Matthew Richter’s sound highlighting the proclamations of the dragon gods and the intensifying signs of the upcoming cataclysm.
The overall effect is fine, though not striking. Some of the costumes, ostensibly aimed to underscore the wackiness element, are conspicuously mismatched; in one scene, for example, Vivian wear a floral top and checked pants, whereas elsewhere Darren and Lucas are outfitted in contrasting plaids. To my eye, too many of these choices seemed more random than well-considered.
Still, the human encounters at the heart of the play outweigh whatever production missteps, juvenile illogic and Armageddon-overlay the narrative supports, while there’s enough humor and generosity in the earthling characters to keep the show engaging.
The Road Theatre Company, The Road on Magnolia, The NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd., N. Hollywood. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm, Thurs., Oct. 16, 23 and 30, 8 pm;thru Nov. 2. www.roadtheatre.org
