Georgia Orchid and Cruz St. James (Photo by Paul Rubenstein)
Reviewed by Lovell Estell III
City Garage Theatre
Through Sept. 27
Martha Duncan, Alicia Ivanhoe, Georgia Orchid and Angela Beyer (Photo by Paul Rubenstein)
Ukrainian playwright Natalka Vorozhbyt’s absurdist-tinged drama tells of the trauma and disruption experienced by a quartet of women fleeing Ukraine during the Russian invasion.
Translated by John Freedman and Natalia Brautus, we first see the four women weighted down with luggage (one has a baby in her arms), shuffling into a gated immigration transit stop, where they are confronted by an arrogant official (Ricky Lee Grove). The dark mood is heightened by dreary music and storm clouds projected on a large screen.
As if to emphasize their shared condition, they have no names. They are identified only by monikers in the program: Cat Lover (Martha Duncan), Housewife (Alicia Ivanhoe), Manicurist (Georgia Orchid), and Actress (Angela Beyer). They range in age from the elderly to the young, but all are equally downtrodden by the realities of war.
Their stories are related mainly through a series of dark, often comical tableaus. One particularly horrifying segment involves the repeated rape and sexual abuse related by the Manicurist at the hands of Russian soldiers, who cruelly taunt her with the words “she will never think of sex again.”
Another very complex tale involves the Actress, whose role is constructed around a film shoot taking place within the play, where she channels multiple characters to explore larger issues of Ukrainian history, as well as the tumult of the present. As bleak as the subject matter is, there are moments of humor that emerge.
This is a problematic play that is, at times, very difficult to follow. This is magnified by the shifts in time, and the author’s penchant for the gratuitous (nowhere is this more evident than in the sexually charged scene involving the Housewife). However, director Frederique Michel does draw solid, convincing performances from the cast, which includes Dennis Kimmel, Cruz St. James and Eric Trosch in multiple roles.
City Garage Theatre, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building TI, Santa Monica, Fri.-Sat., 8 pm. Sun., 4 pm: through Sept. 27. www.citygarage.org Running time: One hour and 35 minutes with no intermission.
