A
Body of Water
After seeing Firebelly’s spellbinding,
well-polished production of Lee Blessing’s poetic play A Body of Water, I felt a
hunger for human interaction. The edge-of-seat suspense kept me holding my
breath until the last revelation. Other opening night audience members, who
exited the theater fired up on opening night asked each other “What’s all this
about?”
The title works like an extended metaphor about memory loss. Literally, we are
body bags of 94% water. Figuratively, our memories are fluid. If our experiences
slip through our minds and into oblivion and we don’t remember what happened,
did the event, then, ever occur? Even a journal can be a distorted, unreliable
source. What’s real? Death is. But Blessing wants us to explore the intense
present and the mystery between what we remember and our identity.
(Full
Review)
Firebelly Ends Season With Surreal Tale of
Forgotten Identity
A man and a woman - maybe they're a
couple, maybe not - wake up in a strange vacation house, not knowing who they
are, where they are or what their relationship to each other might be.
Then a quirky and slightly creepy young woman, who may or may not be their
daughter, starts spinning stories about their past. Are they murderers? Victims
of foul play? Part of a diabolical experiment?
Firebelly Productions wraps up its 2007-08 season with “A Body of Water,” which
follows the couple as they try to figure out what is going on, combining both
drama and humor in the process.
(Full
Review)
A fascinating situation without a
resolution
Lee
Blessing is a master at selecting fascinating situations to dramatize. He is
also a master at writing sharp dialogue that delivers plot information in a
natural and unforced way while illuminating characteristics in the personalities
of the people involved. Here, his effort is given fine performances under the
impressive direction of Michael Ryan Fernandez making his professional
directorial debut. As a result of the quality of the performances and the
intelligent progression of the staging, the show holds the audience's interest
through all of the first act and most of the second. But then Blessing's script
lets the artistic team down, which lets the audience down too. Still, the
concept is so intriguing that you may remember the intellectual exercise of
trying to make sense of the dilemma facing the protagonists, and the pleasure of
watching them struggle with that dilemma long after you've forgotten the brief
sense of disappointment that accompanies the final ten minutes or so of the
actual performance.
(Full
Review)
