(photo courtesy of Avanti Artist Ensemble)
Reviewed by Maya Alfaro
Avanti Artist Collective
Through Oct. 18
RECOMMENDED
Photo courtesy of Avanti Artist Ensemble
This review is part of the Stage Raw/Unusual Suspects Youth Journalism Fellowship.
What happens when the past you remember isn’t the past someone else remembers? When friendship, guilt and morality become impossible to separate? Stephen Belber’s Tape asks uncomfortable questions about what people owe each other – and whether the truth is always as simple as telling it.
Set in a dingy motel room in Lansing, Michigan, Tape follows Jon (Jeremy Gimenez), an aspiring filmmaker in town for a screening of his short film, and Vince (director and executive producer Ignacio Serrichio), a volunteer firefighter who sells drugs on the side. As the two reminisce about their high school years, their conversation gradually shifts towards Amy (Sasha Higgins), Vince’s ex-girlfriend. Vince pressures Jon into admitting a long-held secret and reveals he has been recording their conversation to give to Amy, who is on her way to the motel. What begins as a seemingly casual reunion quickly becomes a tense interrogation of memory, guilt, and competing versions of the truth.
Though there are usually setbacks that come with producing theater in a small venue, the Avanti Artist Collection turns those limitations into one of the production’s greatest strengths. Performed in a 50-seat venue, Tape gains an almost claustrophobic intimacy. I was close enough to feel the tension between the characters, making every shift, every pause, and confrontation feel uncomfortably immediate.
The set is similarly stripped down: an unmade bed, a table covered in beer cans, and a chair. In independent theater, there is limited production spectacle for actors to hide behind. When the set is simple, as it is here, the performances and direction have nowhere to go but forward. Here, I really felt that work in this production’s favor, giving Serrichio, Gimenez, and Higgins the space to make the characters themselves the spectacle.
Serrechio and Gimenez are particularly compelling as Vince and Jon. Their relationship is one of the production’s most interesting dynamics, as it never settles into a simple friendship or rivalry. They clearly care about each other, but that affection exists alongside resentment and a desire to gain control of the conversation.
The two actors handle those contradictions with impressively subtlety. Their performances constantly communicate things that lie beneath the dialogue; from changes in posture to the sudden shift in who seemed to be controlling the room. Neither character ever feels completely trustworthy, and neither feels completely unsympathetic.
Director Serrichio’s blocking is one of the productions’ standout qualities. The stage is essentially a small corner with very little horizontal space, so the production makes effective use of vertical movement. With only a chair, table and bed available, the actors repeatedly climb onto, sit on and move around these objects. These choices make for a great visual representation of the power struggle that happening among the three characters. Because the entire play takes place in one motel room, the blocking makes the room feel increasingly like a battleground.
With the recent Cornell University sexual assault case bringing questions of accountability and whose version of events gets believed back into the spotlight, Tape feels increasingly timely.
Avanti Artists Collective, 3619 Hayden Ave., Culver City; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; thru Oct. 18. https://www.onstage411.com/newsite/boxoffice/cart.asp?show_id=8774&orgin=guest
