Safe Harbor
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Lower Depth Theater Ensemble
Through December 15
Last year’s arrest of wealthy financier and pal-to-the-powerful Jeffery Epstein on charges related to the sex trafficking of minors sent salacious shock waves throughout the country via the headline-hunting national media. But Epstein and his circle of unprincipled cohorts were not alone. Sexual exploitation and abuse of vulnerable young people is both ongoing and ubiquitous — although its precise scope is difficult to determine as the young victims are too often too brainwashed or intimidated to cooperate in the prosecution of their abusers.
Tira Palmquist’s Safe Harbor spotlights the problem with a dual-pronged narrative about two young teenagers — 12-year-old Sasha (Cymya Johnson) and 14-year-old Mikayla (Yumarie Morales) — who run away from home and are subsequently tricked into trafficking by pimps and procurers. Directed by Anita Dashiell-Sparks for Lower Depth Theater Ensemble, the script is a high-end message vehicle that benefits from quality tech elements and several solid performances. But ultimately the production is constrained by the writing — the lack of depth of the characters and their relationships as Palmquist presents them — as well as the less on-target performances among the ensemble.
The stories run parallel. Mikayla, bounced from one foster home to another, has finally been placed in a group home, but she runs away after one of the male counsellors (Scott Victor Nelson) touches her inappropriately, with intimations of more abuse to follow.
Meanwhile, Sasha lives with her over-strict, recently widowed dad, Michael (Jason Delane Lee), who loves his daughter but whose woeful parenting skills are demonstrated by disciplinary threats of “grounding” that evidence little understanding of the needs of young girls (especially one who’s lost her mother). Michael’s sister Christine (Sydney A. Mason) does what she can to ameliorate the consequences of her brother’s harsh temper, but not enough to prevent Sasha from packing a few things and leaving home.
Both children end up cold and hungry on the street where they’re targeted by bad actors who dress them in provocative clothing and send them out on “dates.” Mikayla gets mixed up with a grubby street guy (Nelson), who promises her love and a rosy future together; Sasha, transformed in a slinky dress and platinum blonde wig (costumes by Wendell C. Carmichael) is lured by a slithery-tongued procuress, Jaz (Mason) and served up to johns at upscale parties.
Both girls end up counseled by June (Yvonne Huff Lee) a victims’ rights advocate who had been sex-trafficked herself as a teen and still suffers nightmares — and daymares — when past traumas break through to disturb the fastidiously constructed equanimity with which she usually copes.
Huff Lee’s natural and non-fussy performance is one of the show’s strengths. Mason is also perversely engaging as the treacherous Jaz, while Johnson’s pouty, credulous mannerisms create a credible pre-teen persona (not always easy for an adult actor playing a child) for her Sasha. Morales likewise avoids stereotype; on the other hand, her Mikayla is almost too understated. The character needs greater spark and more of an individual stamp.
As Michael, Sasha’s dad, Delane Lee brings vocal power and presence to the role, but his actor-ly machinations are overly visible. Part of the problem is the shorthand nature of the dialogue, which is focused on delineating the social ill it seeks to expose but fails to provide much depth or backstory (we don’t learn anything about Michael’s late wife, for example). Also, the script calls for several performers to double up on roles, but I’m not sure that works to the production’s advantage. Nelson plays several roles that might have been better undertaken by multiple actors.
Scenic designer Travis Moelter’s figurative backdrop is a modest but handsome construct of low mountain peaks against the image of a full moon that hint at our own Southern California landscape. Lighting designers Jesse Fryery and Nicole Eng of Visual Terrain periodically flood the playing area with reddish and twilight hues that add great ambience, although sometimes the actors’ faces are too much in shadow. Nichole Baffone’s sound is most notable for its accompaniment of the inner turmoil that afflicts the girls and women who have undergone the terrible ordeals the drama addresses, and that now have them seeking safe harbor.
Zephyr Theater, 7456 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through Dec. 15. www.lower-depth.com. Running time: approximate 90 minutes with no intermission.
