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Ghost Light
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Atwater Village Theatre
Through August 27
RECOMMENDED:
There’s an old superstition that an empty theater should never be left dark – hence the term ghost light, referring to the solitary light that illuminates the house after everyone’s gone home.
The most common reason given for the practice is that it’s a means of warding off ghosts. Some superstitious people suggest that ghosts will visit however much we try to keep them away, so best to keep the light burning so the spectral visitors can do their thing without struggling to see.
It’s perhaps this latter way of thinking that furnishes the framework for Tommy Smith’s lyric fragment, Ghost Light, which is directed by Chris Fields and features Deborah Puette in a quartet of dreamlike monologues. These are delivered on a dark bare stage lit by what appears the light of a single lamp (actual lighting design by Matt Richter).
As stated in the script, these poetic narratives – running 30 minutes in all – are envisioned to be taking place after a full fledged production has wrapped for the night – in other words, they are performances being rendered by a “ghost.” Not quite fully developed playlets, they are more like poetic whispers, illuminating the strange interior lives that some of us live.
In “The Fog,” (which I read as a metaphor for the self-preoccupation of youth) the narrator uses “we” instead of “I” to recall a time when she and her friends idled in an ethereal world – and how from there they departed into a grimmer reality only to withdraw again into a cloud of self-generated self-absorption.
“The Lotus Eaters,” an eerier and more erotic and ribald tale, is also recounted with the collective “we.” The speaker belongs to that mythical community of mesmerizers who lured Odysseus’ men – identified in Smith’s story only as handsome sailors – from their epic journey home.
“Madelines” shifts to an urban dreamscape, a bohemian Paris; this time the narrator is a single woman, a filmmaker and manipulative adventuress who photographs nude men as they grow erect in response to her charms.
“Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia” (fear of the number 666, that ominous numeral overshadowing the Book of Revelation) is a mature woman’s story, a lonely widow living by the water whose disassociation and depression play out in a hostile relationship with someone else’s cat.
The matter-of-fact minimalism of Puette’s performance effectively underscores the weirdness of the material but I couldn’t help wondering if the piece might have been more powerful if the performer had seemed more connected.
Also, more might be done to identify the transition from one story to the next. I myself was initially confused about where “The Fog” left off and “The Lotus Eaters” began, ‘till the wildness of the second tale made their diversion clear.
Echo Theater Company at the Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave, Atwater Village; Wed. Aug. 26, Thurs. Aug. 27. (310) 307-3753, www.EchoTheaterCompany.com
