Bethany Anne Lind must get tired of playing so many kid roles -- the actress is probably pushing, what, all of 25? -- but it’s hard to feel too sorry for her when she’s so darn good at it. Among her most recent highlights: a precocious kindergartner (in Synchronicity’s “Junie B. Jones”), an innocent adolescent (Horizon’s “Night Blooms”) and a rebellious teenager (Aurora’s “The Storytelling Ability of a Boy”).
Two seasons ago, Lind shone in the Alliance’s “26 Miles,” the 2008 winner of the theater’s annual Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, in which she portrayed a high school student who reluctantly reunites with her estranged mother for a road trip out west.
Now, curiously enough, in the Alliance’s world premiere of David Mitchell Robinson’s “Carapace,” its 2010 Kendeda winner, Lind co-stars as a high school student who reluctantly reunites with her estranged father, and a few of their scenes together also happen to take place in a car. To be sure, whether or not you saw “26 Miles,” “Carapace” covers a lot of well-trod ground about parental responsibility and neglect.
For her part, however, wonderful actress that she is, Lind isn’t just going through the same old motions. To begin with, “Carapace” spans several years, and much of it is told in flashback, which gives her a greater range to play as the character of Margo matures.
Moreover, Margo suffers from a debilitating stutter that might have seemed maudlin or self-indulgent in less sensitive hands. (As fate would have it, the timing of the show couldn’t be better, what with all the rage over “The King’s Speech.”) As a dramatic device for Robinson, it’s a bit heavy, but Lind brings a nuance to the role that’s heartbreaking.
Robinson’s main character is actually the father, Jeff, a brash TV sports anchor and allegedly recovering alcoholic who narrates the story. "Carapace" marks a welcome return to town for veteran Atlanta actor David de Vries (after three years on the road with “Wicked”), whose performance is a masterful balance of subtle ambiguities and blatant contradictions.
From one scene to the next, you may like Jeff, and then you may not. You want to believe all of his AA platitudes about “searching my moral inventory” and “making direct amends,” even as he’s sneaking shots of Maker’s Mark out in his car. You can sympathize with his reaching out to Margo, if not with how miserably he botches it.
De Vries is on stage for the duration of the play’s 90-plus minutes, exceedingly personable in his running commentary to the audience and yet painfully uneasy dealing with the other characters. In one of de Vries’ strongest scenes, given an opportunity by Margo to apologize, Jeff is utterly speechless, but the actor’s desperate facial expressions say it all.
It isn’t very profound to hear Jeff observe that actions speak louder than words or to suspect that his final encounter with Margo could end badly. Under the astute direction of Tony-winning actress Judith Ivey, the tension and sense of dread is palpable. She also elicits solid supporting turns from Paul Hester, Mark Kincaid, Joe Knezevich and Tony Larkin as the people Jeff meets along the way.
The play’s ultimate destination might seem inevitable; it’s the getting there that distinguishes the journey.
Theater review
“Carapace”
Grade: B
Through March 6. Tuesdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays at 2:30 p.m.; Sundays at 7:30 p.m. $25-$30. Alliance Theatre Hertz Stage, 1280 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-733-1500. alliancetheatre.org.
Bottom line: A trip worth taking, despite the dead end.
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