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Silver Lining

 
Reviewed by Sarah Tuft
a Working Theater at Art Share
Through November 21

RECOMMENDED:

A Working Theater’s Silver Lining starts with a kitchen sink drama in which a young couple argues over what to do about an unplanned pregnancy. Suddenly an intruder stops the play or, rather — in the world of immersive, interactive theatre — hijacks it.

See… this little play might go on to become a big hit, propelling a Working Theater and its producing partner, “Panopticon Global” (look ‘em up, I dare you), into world domination. Unfortunately, the intruder accidentally breaks the time/space continuum at which point, we  – the audience – are entreated to help fix it.

Fix the time/space continuum? Us?

But there’s no getting out of it. The audience is intentionally small. The space is intentionally intimate. And we are as brightly lit as the actors. In other words, Silver Lining is not for the terminally shy.

So our journey begins. We head down dark corridors and into papier mache rooms. We are interrogated, seduced and serenaded. We solve riddles and pass tests. And finally… we decide the fate of the production.

Having spent time at the actual Occupy Wall Street, I found the play’s corporate domination narrative a little sophomoric. And as a hermitically-inclined writer, I squirmed under the glare of all that eye-contact and almost died not having hand sanitizer when asked to practice yoga on a mat of unknown origins. And the blindfolds? (Yes, we are blindfolded for a while.) Talk about cooties! But in the end (as in any challenge where one is forced to overcome fears), I had a blast.

Writers Matt Soson and Vika Stubblebine create an entertaining journey that shifts as each audience’s unique interpretation alters its course. Directors Soson and Jessica Salans make deft use of Art Share LA’s raw industrial aesthetic and of a limited budget with Sohail E. Najafi’s lighting and Marika Stephens’s sets designed mostly out of common household items.

The ensemble is delightful, combining a tongue-in-cheek playfulness with a plucky commitment. They include Soson, Salans, and Stubblebine, along with Mikie Beatty, Karel Ebergen, Madeline Harris, Shery Hernandez, Ben Huth, Matt Jones, Amy Kline, Kevin Railsback, Taylor Solomon, Erika Soto, and Emily Yetter – all playing different multiple roles in each performance. (Gregory, the ad hoc defense attorney, was especially expressive despite a rubber rat’s head masking his/her face.)

While Silver Lining addresses heady issues of who we are today, where we’re headed and metaphors galore, this is not entirely a cerebral experience. If you like a good, rough-around-the-edges haunted house – creatures and crevasses, surprises and suspense, being led blindfolded down memory lane in a winkingly cheesy parody of immersive, interactive theater – you’ll have a great time.

A Working Theater in partnership with Art Share L.A. and Panopticon Global, 801 E. 4th Place, Dwntwn.; Tues.- Sun., 7 & 8:30 p.m.; through November 21. (203) 822-3324, aworkingtheater.ticketleap.com/a-silver-lining/