My first instinct was to feel sorry for a small group of latecomers to a recent performance of Aurora Theatre’s “Sweep.” They arrived 10 or so minutes into the excessively weird and unwieldy one-act show, and quietly took their seats in a corner of the company’s intimate studio space. “Those poor people,” I soon thought, knowing that they’d missed the opening scene and the phantasmagorical setup of the play. “They probably have no idea about what in the world they’re watching.”
My second instinct was to feel sorry for myself. After all, I had seen it from the top, but, even so, their guess might've been just as good as mine. In any event, according to the show's publicity materials, the premise goes something like this: Soul sisters Luna and Siri are "hitwomen of the multiverse, armed with deadly broomsticks (and) bound to sweep mistakes into oblivion." And the plot reportedly simulates the "adventure of a great graphic novel," mixed with certain "Dragon Con sensibilities."
That the play is also billed as a "strange imagining" (by Georgina Escobar) is putting it mildly — a quality that's on woefully scant display elsewhere in "Sweep." Aurora's world-premiere production is directed by Abigail Vega, who did a much more cohesive and coherent job for the Lawrenceville troupe with last season's staging of the Spanish-language comedy "Divorciadas, Evangelicas y Vegetarianas."
In some distant future, grungy renegade “sweepers” Luna (Jasmine Ellis) and Siri (Candice McLellan) request a “do-over” from the higher-ups at the League of Reactivation Defenders (aka, wink wink, the L.O.R.D.). In the distant past, it seems they botched their first mission to the Garden of Eden, so they propose an “intergalactic intervention” — a second bite of the proverbial apple, you could say — by “transmigrating” back in time to alter nothing less than the evolution of humanity and the course of civilization.
We meet-cute the silly and bickering Adam and Eve (Cody Russell and India Tyree), and the increasingly convoluted and inscrutable narrative includes other subplots involving John the Baptist and his soothsaying wife (also Russell and Tyree), and a struggling modern-day New York couple (Russell and Tyree again). In times of dubious spiritual conflict, Luna turns for guidance to a mysterious stranger (Joshua Quinn), who’s alternately referred to as a “prophet,” an “archangel” and a “shadow from beyond.”
Between trendy one-liners about Twitter or “alternate facts,” not to mention an impromptu punk-rock interlude or the video clip of a giant talking bug, Escobar’s vague feminist agenda attempts (loosely) to correlate the plights of those women played by Tyree. And whenever Luna gets serious with sundry comments about gender equality and unity, the fine line between “superstitions” and “universal wisdom,” or the cosmic forces of nature, it feels bogus.
Talk about biting off more than you can chew …
THEATER REVIEW
“Sweep”
Grade: C-
Through March 5. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays (excluding Friday, Feb. 24); 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. $15-$20. Aurora Theatre, 128 E. Pike St., Lawrenceville. 678-226-6222, www.auroratheatre.com.
Bottom line: A mind-boggling mess.
