I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Reviewed by Sarah Tuft
Theatre of NOTE
Through August 30

Photo by Ido Berstein

Erik Patterson’s new play captures the unique communion of strangers thrown together by extreme circumstances. Like on that doomed flight when the passenger next to you becomes your best friend, the fellow travelers of Patterson’s hospital waiting room forge bonds based on the instant intimacy of their common tragedy. But whereas in-flight terror is expressed through screams and clawing, in Patterson’s waiting room, it’s endless rounds of Go Fish and sandwiches. Boredom can be treacherous, but it’s the heady mix of hope and fear that fuels confessions and exerts pressure to reveal secrets.

Paul (Nicholas S. Williams) and his sister, Julia (Alina Phelan) pray for their mother (Judith Ann Levitt) to wake from her coma while Julia’s more (or less) dutiful husband, Josh (Keston John) struggles to find the right words, literally for his crossword puzzle, figuratively as he tiptoes through the minefield of a relationship on life support. Their crisis intersects with that of Ada (Kirsten Vangsness) whose fiancé, Frank (Phil Ward), has also suffered a coma-inducing aneurism, and later the resulting aphasia, which robs him of easy language.

Love of language runs throughout I Wanna Hold Your Hand. In Paul’s opening monologue, he admits to having a teacher’s preoccupation with proper grammar. With his mother poised on the precipice between present and past, he’s especially fussy about tenses. But when he cites a student’s words of wisdom, “Coincidences are just the universe being lazy” he reveals what might be the central idea of this play – coming to terms with the randomness of it all. Even outside the hospital, life defies those structures invented to measure, control and impose order upon it. Frank, a mapmaker, is no longer able to make maps. Marriage, a structure created to contain love and manage lust, does little to tame either.

As Paul, Williams balances affability with the discomfort of a man in denial. Phelan, as Julia, captures the inevitable warmth and weightlessness of the daughter of a “nice” woman. As Julia’s husband, Josh, John is pitch-perfect as the outsider judged for his lack of wits but with plenty to spare. Vangsness is luminous as Ada – an unexpected revelation that grows from her first panicked entrance. Both Levitt and Ward masterfully portray the humanity beneath their affliction – Levitt showing her gentility even as her condition robs her of self-censorship, and Ward revealing that a newly disabled man can also be a strong one.

Director McKerrin Kelly creates a tender fabric of connections and missed connections, with a compassionate unifying vision.

Although I Wanna Hold Your Hand starts with words, it ends with the image of oranges. “Please eat me,” they say. And it makes them all happy. Perhaps this is where happiness lies . . . when we move from grasping at the structures we invent to contain the world, to surrendering to its uncontainable beauty.
 

Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hlywd.; Thurs.-Sat. 8p.m.; Sun. 7p.m.; through August 30. (323) 856-8611, theatreofnote.com