Logan Belland and Aidhan Farley Astrachan (Photo by Matthew Kim)
Reviewed by Asa Fris
Hollywood Fringe Festival at Zephyr Theater
Thru June 28th
There’s a brief moment in the tidal cycle called ‘slack tide.’ It’s the moment between the flood tide and the ebb tide. Slack tide is the stillness between.
That’s exactly the situation four friends find themselves in as they rendezvous in their hometown of Kittery Point, Maine — a moment of stillness before big changes crash down on their lives.
Morgan (Gabriela Raven) is moving to LA for a job. Sawyer (Logan Bell) will soon know the result of months of work and thousands of dollars spent farming oysters. Will (Aidhan Farley Astrachan) faces uncertainty and fear about our future as a nation, and even planet. He’s also not over Morgan, even though they broke up six months prior to the meet up. And Addy (Adrianne Owings) is dealing with transportation difficulties, but is on the way.
This is the world premiere of slack tide by Jonah Matso, who also directs. And though the stillness of slack tide is only a brief moment in the tidal cycle, in this production, stillness dominates. It’s the connective tissue between every joke, argument, and grievance. The abundance and full-hearted commitment to these moments of nothing is formidable, and serves to heighten things that break it: comedic bits, emotional confessions, etc. A crashing wave draws more attention if it’s the only wave you can see.
But Matso may indulge in silence or stillness too often. Though moments of action, surrounded by stillness, stand out, the impact of the device diminishes the more it’s featured. There’s a difference between moments that contain nothing, and moments of silence where you can feel the weight of an invisible hulking locomotive passing from one character to the next. Here often the former is featured.
The setting is simple — a picnic table and a folding chair set up to look out over the harbor, with waves softly crashing. Each actor embraces the presence of the ocean, and the nostalgic nature of their meeting. As an ensemble the actors are funny, spontaneous, and intriguing to watch. They’re comfortable and relaxed in Matso’s created world.
As director, Matso’s staging is decent, though a little too physically constraining, with actors placed behind furniture or moving for the sake of moving, or moments of depth missed by focusing solely on the action of two characters despite a third being in the scene, just not talking.
The ending of slack tide features a passage from the sci-fi series Empyrion by Stephen R. Lawhead. Addy reads from its pages to the others. The book argues for living in the now, regardless of what struggles are to come, or what judgement we might make about our surroundings. Why not be present with what is? (At least, that’s my interpretation.)
Using Lawhead’s ending is an interesting choice. On one hand, it’s a bit like sampling a song, remixing the original work into a new experience, building off it.
On the other hand, the ending of the book was meant to be read after reading the rest of the book. While it is discussed and summarized throughout the play, audience members who haven’t read the book themselves may harbor uncertainty or reservation about what the ending might actually mean. More importantly, making this the play’s final sequence is a bit underwhelming, or even a bit of a let-down, after the specific and well attended exploration of its themes that permeate the rest of this piece.
Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave. , W. Hollywood https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/12184?tab=tickets. Running time: approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
