Stopping By

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Edgemar Center for the Arts
Through June 25

RECOMMENDED

*Note: This production was originally reviewed at the Echo Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre. The dates and venue have changed to reflect the remount.

Writer/solo performer Barbara Tarbuck has titled her vibrant one-act Stopping By, a phrase that calls to mind Robert Frost’s iconic poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, with its meditation (as I interpret it anyway) on human mortality.

In the play, the narrator, Christine, recalls these words as spoken by an Irish bartender, with terminal cancer and only a few weeks to live. Packing up to return to Ireland for his final days, the soon-to-be traveler engages in a farewell toast with his pal Charley, whose own demise is the propelling event in the story. (“We’re all just stoppin’ by, Charley,” the Irishman remarks, lifting his glass.)

Charley is Christine’s husband of several decades, and Tarbuck’s loosely autobiographical one-woman show recounts the couple’s struggle with his illness and the pilgrimage Christine takes following his death in search of healing, self-acceptance and a place to sow Charley’s ashes.

Toting her loved one’s urn, and accompanied by her brother Jacques, her son Sean, and her son’s fiancée Yuki, Christine heads for Burning Man, the annual gathering in Black Rock City, Nevada, where thousands of mostly young revelers assemble each year to celebrate the twin notions of creativity and community.

Once past the visceral account of Charley’s final illness, the narrative, though it stays compelling, turns lighter. Its wry tone reminded me in a way of Garrison Keillor. The most vivid anecdotes revolve around Jacques, Christine’s naïve and trusting younger sibling, a sweet soul who, now in his 60s, never quite grew up and for whom Christine feels responsible.

The idea of our responsibility towards others and of our common humanity is perhaps the primary theme in this alternately droll, bawdy and eloquent piece of writing.

For all the virtues of the script, however, the production, directed by Brian Dillinger, still seems a work in progress. It’s staged on the all-white set of Death Play, another solo piece I reviewed recently. The lighting changes are minimal and a low wooden table as Tarbuck’s sole prop/set piece.

The sameness in designer Anna Engelsman’s lighting means there ‘s not much to underscore the transitions in the narrative, of which there are many. The single piece of furniture seems inadequate and misplaced. And on opening night, Tarbuck, an intense accomplished performer, was still spinning her story from a distance, not yet making eye contact with the audience.

Edgemar Center for the Arts, 2437 Main St. Santa Monica, CA 90405; Sat., 8 p.m.; through June 25. (310) 392-7327, www.edgemarcenter.org/barbara-tarbuck-stopping/. Running time: one hour, 10 minutes.