Opening
Nights

PThe Edge of Our Bodies

Washington Ensemble Theatre, 608 19th Ave. E., 325-5105, washingtonensemble.org. $15–$20. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Mon. Ends April 14.

All these eons of coexistence, and women still haven’t found a place alongside men where they feel comfortable, secure, and themselves? How is it that feminine free agency, for survival’s sake, can be twisted into covert strategies of manipulation? WET’s regional debut of Adam Rapp’s drama uses its 90 minutes not to address the whys of this dilemma but to explore the dark process of deception—or is it self-deception? The play is one long dreamscape of recollection, often so beautifully poetic that you can close your eyes and be dazzled by the language alone.

Director Devin Bannon and actress Samie Spring Detzer agreed that Rapp’s 2011 play would make an ideal showcase for her, and there’s no arguing that she’s well cast as 16-year-old Bernadette, a prep-school ingenue who takes a day trip to New York to tell her boyfriend she’s pregnant. Along the way, this doe-eyed coquette—whose eyes dance almost imperceptibly between innocent victim and carny huckster—encounters men who have faces of “fat, sick babies,” whom she otherwise describes as “lunch meat” with “simian tufts of hair” billowing from their shirts.

But the veracity of Bernadette’s reverie is always in question. Rapp undermines her credibility early by showing that she has a gift not only for hyperbole, but for flights of fancy. She steps in and out of character while recalling her own performance in a recent school production of Jean Genet’s The Maids—where female characters also tease the audience for believing too much of what they say.

The pregnancy plot doesn’t matter much. This is a play about Bernadette’s mind, and how a young woman finds footholds in the world. If she’s a Little Girl Lost in the Big City, how then will she not fall prey to those who’d take advantage of her? For Rapp (whose Red Light Winter was seen at ACT last year), what Bernadette has is a quick mind and a mastery of storytelling such that her elaborate portraits of events, real or not, give her a sorceress’ skill to create fresh realities. And they give her the upper hand in every situation—unless of course those situations are fictions.

There’s a brief moment when a second uncredited performer appears as a maintenance man to clear the stage (here again, WET’s tech work is a marvel of economy), which only makes for more head-scratching. Has Bernadette been fantasizing the whole time? Is her entire yarn merely meant to test her potential as a pied piper? The Edge of Our Bodies becomes a spiral staircase of conundrums, bringing to mind Churchill’s famous adage about Russia: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” It’s that, and fodder for decades of conversations to come. Kevin Phinney

The Tutor

Village Theatre, 303 Front St. N. (Issaquah), 425-392-2202, village theatre.org. Runs Tues.–Sun. Ends April 27. 
(Then moves to Everett Performing Arts Center, May 2–25.)

Maryrose Wood’s musical has its strengths, but clarity of intent is not one. Her story—of an aspiring writer, Edmund (Eric Ankrim), hired by Manhattanites Richard and Esther (Hugh Hastings, Beth DeVries) to help their rebelliously apathetic daughter Sweetie (Tatum Ludlam, double-cast with Katie Griffith) get into Prince-ton—presents a setup for a satire, of literary pretensions or upper-class neuroses or both, but Wood throws marshmallows rather than darts at her targets. Nor does it seem to be simply a nonjudgmental sociological character study; not one of these four is sharply drawn enough to elevate them above bland archetype. And none of them are easy to like—which, OK, earns a point for daring, but which really works against persuading the audience to care what happens next.

The Tutor’s cleverest conceit is that the characters in Edmund’s novel-in-progress come to life to advise him. Played adroitly by Matthew Kacergis and Kristen deLohr Helland, they shape-shift from role to role as Edmund tries to commit to a milieu: Civil War? Roaring ’20s? Wild West? Irish immigration? The costume and accent changes must have been a hoot for the actors, but it trapped composer Andrew Gerle into writing a lot of pastiche. Other numbers I’d just bet were repurposed from a pre-existing comedy revue: a faux college fight song, one about veganism, one about impotence. (Richard and Esther are in bed arguing about their nonexistent sex life; the orchestra steals in underneath; oh, God, please don’t sing about it. He does.)

Gerle’s a deft setter of Wood’s lyrics, especially when she offers the juicy challenge of dialogue or differing points of view within a song. (Though even these can come off as lessons too assiduously learned from Sondheim.) But his best number is a solo for Esther, “That’s How a Life Is Made,” a poignant paths-not-taken lament with a graceful melodic irregularity that sounds just like introspection made music.

It’s a rare moment of spice. According to the playbill, The Tutor was workshopped both at Village Theatre in 2004 and in Connecticut in 2001. Today’s result, expertly constructed and paced, testifies to a painstaking development process, but I’d rather not think about how much color and flavor might have been boiled out of it along the way. Gavin Borchert

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