Tamberla Perry and Devere Rogers (Photo by Cooper Bates)
Reviewed by Caitlin Durkin
Echo Theater
Through Oct. 26.
RECOMMENDED
Kristen Ariza, Devere Rogers, Kelly McCreary, John Clarence Stewart, and Tamberla Perry (Photo by Cooper Bates)
This review is part of the Stage Raw/Unusual Suspects Youth Journalism Fellowship
Can we separate the art from the artist? Should we? Echo Theater’s world premiere of The Peterson Show by Janine Nabers faces these questions head on.
In the face of tragedy, a group of five estranged former child stars, who played a family on a 1990s sitcom, reunite. Their dynamics mimic that of real families, with jealousies, divergent life paths, grudges, and revelations. Ronika (Tamberla Perry) and Dwight (Devere Rogers) are a pair of messy best friends who have clinged to their fame and, in failing to remain successful actors, have turned to drugs. Zoe (Kristen Ariza) and Elliot (John Clarence Stewart) gladly exited the spotlight and have had successful academic and legal careers, respectively. Finally, there’s Blair (Kelly McCreary) who is now an award-winning actress—with effective media training she has dodged making a clear statement about their disgraced TV father, Haywood Peterson, who is now in prison. Despite the heavy underlying themes of this story, Michelle Bossy’s direction amplifies the humor of the lines; and the actors, especially Rogers and Perry, lean into some truly clownish top-tier physical comedy.
Bill Cosby and similar famous figures exposed for abusing their Hollywood power are unfortunately all too familiar for modern audiences. As such, every possible reaction and opinion has been circulated on social media. Playwright Nabers does not shy away from the intricacies and messiness of these kinds of scandals. In fact, each audience member can walk away with a different opinion on the specific scenario in front of them, as well as the myriad of similar real-life stories that may surface for them when watching. The true atrocity this play exposes is how prevalent these stories are. The play could easily have been set in a classroom (à la John Proctor Is the Villain), an office (à la Oleanna), or even the White House. As the sexual assault case at a Cornell University fraternity in 2024 is making national news headlines, this play is even more poignant and timely.
Nabers, though, chooses to focus her play on the entertainment industry. The set, designed by Michael Kramer, gracefully integrates multimedia elements, using mounted TV screens to reimagine the black box theater as a multi-camera studio. The lively cast of actors performs the story with such skill that these murky realities linger under the surface until the moment of eruption. Each actor compellingly displays their character’s subjective reaction to their childhood and how they have learned to survive despite the trauma. Each of the five former TV siblings have had their own path after stardom that, once again, the audience can map onto all kinds of real-life examples of former child stars. It is also worth noting that the portrayals of being drunk or high, always a difficult task, were very impressive,
The Peterson Show is a bold play, the actors make bold choices, and the whole production emboldens audiences to really engage with the difficult question facing us all: how do we react to such scandals and how do we choose what to engage with, and what to shun?
Echo Theater Company, Atwater Village Theatre Echo Theater Company, Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave, Atwater. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 4 pm, Mon., 8 pm; thru Oct. 26. https://www.echotheatercompany.com/peterson-show Runtime: two hours with one intermission.
