The Thin Place
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Echo Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre
Through April 24
In Lucas Hnath’s The Thin Place, a woman named Hilda, haunted by the need to communicate with a dead loved one comes under the wing of a commercially successful psychic who may or may not be the real deal. Sometimes billed as a ghost story, the play is less about the manifestation of the supernatural than it is about our choosing to believe what we want to believe or need to believe — empirical reality be damned.
As played by Caitlin Zambito in the current Echo Theater Company production, Hilda comes off as a fragile woman, long past adolescence but emanating the kind of wavering timidity we associate with insecure youth. The play opens with an extended monologue in which she talks about her beloved, now deceased grandmother, who encouraged her to develop a sixth sense so that the two of them might communicate once the older woman once had passed. Inevitably, she did die — but, unhappily for Hilda, the hoped-for after-death connection did not come to be.
One evening (the monologue continues), Hilda attended a public performance in which a clairvoyant named Linda (Janet Greaves) dazzled audience members by connecting to many of their dearly departed. Hilda resolved to get to know this woman and approached her, in hopes that Linda might help her commune with her grandmother. The two began spending time together.
Linda, for her part, welcomes the companionship and adoration Hilda provides, and begins taking her to parties peopled with sophisticated and affluent people, including Sylvia (Corbett Tuck), her benefactress and fan, and Linda’s cousin Jerry (Justin Huen), a man with a sociable mien and the attitude of a narcissist without a conscience, who relishes his own comfort and privilege. In the play’s most dynamic and conflict-driven segment, the ethical — or non-ethical — nature of Linda’s profession is challenged, but then so is the myopia that prompts Jerry’s dismissal of the plight of those less fortunate than he.
The play’s title derives from Celtic lore, where a “thin place” is a place in which the veil between this world and the other side is a porous one. In her counsel, Hilda’s grandmother had advised her to search it out.
On the page The Thin Place is a thoughtful drama, offering more than the story of a woman pursuing a ghost. As in The Christians, in which Hnath considers the unwillingness of certain “Christians” to renounce the concept of eternal damnation (even if it dooms a brave and honest boy to hellfire) The Thin Place illustrates how difficult it is for human beings to relinquish deeply embedded ideas. (In the party scene, Sylvia points out to Jerry that the opinions he professes are, conveniently, those most advantageous to him.)
But the production, directed by Abigail Deser, doesn’t do much for the text. One distraction is the choice to stage the play bleacher style, with the audience positioned on either side of the venue (scenic design by Deser, Amanda Knehans and Penni Auster). This forces attendees to pivot their heads each time characters address each other from opposite ends of the venue; more importantly, it dissipates the drama of their exchanges. At other times the action takes place in the center of the playing space, but we mostly see everyone in profile, which detracts from the dynamic as well. When Zambita delivers her opening monologue, the idea is that she’s telling her story and confiding her secrets in an intimate personal way, but it’s hard to sustain that illusion when she has to keep moving in such a way that her back is never to anyone for too long.
As Hilda, Zambita establishes a timorous persona early on, an aura underscored by Dianne K. Graebner’s costuming, which has the performer appearing as if she’s only just emerged from the Dust Bowl. Otherwise, the rendering of this character never goes too deep; the yearning and obsession that, potentially, might torment Hilda and drive her attachment to Linda is, though spoken about, not enough on display. Greaves likewise has room to conjure layers in her portrayal of someone who may not be everything she seems.
In his text, Hnath speculates on a possible sexual attraction among the women, but I didn’t catch any of that here. Had there been, it might have given Tuck as Sylvia more to work with in her ambivalence toward Linda, whom she helps out financially — and vice versa.
Hayden Kirschbaum’s lighting is appropriate for the ghost-like elements of the story, and sound designer Alysha Bermudez injects befitting rumbles to help augment them.
Echo Theater Company Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Villate; Fri.-Sat. & Mon., 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.; through Apr. 24. www.EchoTheaterCompany.com. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
