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‘Crooked’s’ grief cuts straight to core
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Crooked” (Grade: B+)
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Through April 29. $15-$20. Theatre in the Square, Alley Stage, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369, theatreinthesquare.com.
The verdict: As devastating as it is funny.
The characters in playwright Catherine Trieschmann’s quirky dark comedy “Crooked” are so lonely, and heartbroken as to defy all cliches.
Jobless single mom Elise Waters does a good job of keeping up appearances, though the compulsive list-making and wine-sipping may signify that something’s amiss. Her teenage daughter, Laney, has a physical abnormality called dystonia, writes gruesome short stories and takes up with her school’s biggest outcast: sweetly overbearing Maribel, the friendless, overweight child of a Holiness minister.
Though it might be tempting to label this a Southern Gothic tale, Trieschmann, an Athens native, writes with such tenderness and authenticity that you can forgive her for piling on the eccentricity. It also doesn’t hurt that Theatre in the Square gives this off-kilter little play such a carefully calibrated performance.
MJ Conboy/Special
Directed by Susan Reid and showcasing the mesmerizing craft of Atlanta actress Jessica Phelps West as Elise, “Crooked” is one of the most moving and essential theatrical experiences of the season: a bone-funny, ultimately devastating meditation on the horrific blind alleyways of grief, neediness and deceit.
As Laney (Brittany Loffert) adjusts to her new school in Oxford, Miss., she encounters Maribel (Myranda DeFoor), who carries a Last Supper lunchbox and a unicorn tote bag and is as plain-looking as she is candid. Only the delightful DeFoor could make confessions about religious fanaticism and adolescent sex sound so matter-of-fact and funny. Her sense of timing is miraculously deadpan.
As the play unfolds, Loffert’s performance creeps up on you. Laney overcompensates for her insecurities by the brazenness of her lies, telling gullible Maribel that she was once kissed by a character in a Faulkner novel. Imagine Elise’s surprise when her daughter declares that she is a “Holiness lesbian.”
As portrayed by West, Elise is all-accepting and all-forgiving. But as her daughter’s personal life seems to spin out of control, she cracks wide open, and we understand the tragic dimensions of her fate. What Elise laments is her absent husband, who has vanished under a cloud of severe mental illness. No doubt about it: Some things really are worse than death.
Though you could argue that Trieschmann layers on an excess of physical and emotional turmoil, there isn’t a false note in this production. “Crooked” tests the waters of faith and love — only to find that despite all rumors to the contrary, nothing conquers all. Are you ready to be baptized by sadness?
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By April
April 11, 2007 7:43 AM | Link to this
Thought you and Gail might be interested in Catherine Trieschmann’s latest success.