Some Stories within a Story within a Story
(And why you should see all of them)
from Stephanie Young
Rob Handel's "Millicent Scowlworthy" is about many things--grief, memory, healing. But more than anything else, it's a play about about plays. About how theatre can help us navigate grief, preserve our vital memories, and grow toward wholeness. It's worth seeing to be confronted by the role stories (and sympathetic audiences) play in our perception of reality. But I'll argue that there's another reason for catching one of these last few performances: director Brian Haimbach is using this play to shape the actors of our future.
Millicent Scowlworthy is everything her name suggests: boorish, melancholy, and shocking. But you can't blame her, given her violent past (and Hannah Baker's sympathetic portrayal of her). She's a refugee, recently adopted into a powerful socialite family, and the combination proves deadly. Enter media-frenzy and a town more concerned with blame than with true healing, and you get a group of brooding, anguished teenagers, among them Kelly and Porter--explosive performances (and I'm not just being cute) by Jenna Grabijas and Brandon Brown. JonBenet Ramsey, meet Columbine.
Thankfully, Handel knows how to exercise restraint--giving us just enough detail for our imaginations to handle the rest. And even more thankfully, he's put the whole thing into a thought-provoking frame tale. The real story is about a group of students who believe it is important to remember these events. They meet every year, draw names, and don costumes. They re-create the lives that were taken, the lives that did the taking, and the Greek tragedies in which they all happened to be acting at the time. (Ms. Grabijas plays a strong Kelly, but her Iphigeneia and Electra are two of the highlights of this production.)
Unfortunately, the adults in town want to move on, to command the timetables of grief and healing in the same way you'd order a dog's obedience. They chase the young actors from performance location to performance location, until the kids are huddled in a basement, holding onto each other, and reliving the brutal end.
Heavy? Yes. Dark? You bet. But you might be surprised to find yourself leaving the theatre hopeful. The reason? Well, one of them is Kalesh Nicholson, whose sullen waiter and pitch-perfect director Botho Spire promise great things for her (and our) theatrical future. Ms. Nicholson, like all the actors in this production, is a student at the Greenville Tech Theatre Program, but you'd never know it. If her electric performance is any indication of what's in our future, we do have reason to rejoice. Another reason: we need to tell these stories of grief. We need to listen. When we do, like we did at Centre Stage last night, we come a little closer to each other, and to healing. But that, I suppose, is the whole point of the play.
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Rob Handel's "Millicent Scowlworthy," directed by Brian Haimbach. Presented by Grenville Tech Theatre Program at Centre Stage, 501 River Street, inside the Smith-Barney building, downtown Greenville. Tickets available at the door. $10
Published on November 14, 2008 at 3:17 pm | Permalink | 0 Comments
