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| Jason Downer as Kyle and Nicole Galyean as Nan |
The reason I put the word
“think” in all-caps, italics and followed by a string of exclamation points is
because I was unable to clearly hear and understand enough to be able to
objectively critique the play. Attribute that to the Southern accents. As I
stated in another review just this week, I am not an astute judge of accents,
but I spent the first 30 years of my life in Mississippi; I should be able to
understand people doing a Southern accent. Perhaps the acoustics or the OLT
sound system can share some of the blame. And yes, I do have less than perfect
hearing. I wear hearing aids. But if I can hear the New and Old England accents
in Fighting Over Beverly or the
Mississippi Delta drawl in Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof (both Harlequin Productions), or odd speech in n other shows at OLT such as Murderers or Sea Marks, both of which had the potential for such problems, then
I should be able to hear these back woods Georgians in Exit . . .
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| from left: Katrina Groen as Sweetheart, Jason Downer and Nicole Galyean |
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| from left: Katrina Groen, Kevin Gowrylow as Simon and Nicole Galyean |
Having said that, this play
with a most intriguing title by Lauren Gunderson is an innovative dark comedy
about a disturbing subject: spouse abuse. I applaud Gunderson and OLT for
attempting it.
The premise is certainly
unique. Nan Carter (Nicole Galyean) has been repeatedly abused by her macho
hunter husband, Kyle (Jason Downer). In order to teach him a lesson or seek
revenge (it’s not entirely clear which), she recruits her lifelong best friend,
Simon Beaufort (Kevin Gowrylow) and her new friend Sweetheart (Katrina Groen)
to theatrically perform for Kyle scenes from his miserable life after having
conked him over the head with a frying pan and duct taping him to a chair.
Nan is a great admirer
of Jimmy Carter and mentions him frequently throughout the play. She wishes
Jimmy Carter was her father. She also loves her husband but can no longer put
up with his abuse. She swings back and forth between wanting to forgive him and
wanting to kill him. This is a complex and difficult character to portray, made
doubly hard by being such a dark comedy that verges on farce. Galyean’s acting
is natural and believable in this complex role.
Downer is wonderful as
Kyle. For an actor who spends much of his stage time duct taped to a chair and
half of that with his mouth taped shut, he does some terrific acting — mostly
done with grunts and a myriad of facial expressions.
Sweetheart is a gun-toting
trailer-trash sexpot with dreams of becoming a Hollywood star. She loves
Shakespeare and peppers her performances with references to the bard. (The
strange title of the play is, in fact, a stage direction Shakespeare wrote in his
script for The Winter’s Tale. Groen is fabulous in this role. She looks the
part and acts it with great relish.
Simon is a clichéd,
stereotypical gay man who first enters dressed as a female cheerleader. I
have big problems with this character. I do not like that he was written as
such an obvious spoof of a gay man and I’m not crazy about the manner in which
Gowrylow portrays him, although I can’t imagine how else he could be portrayed.
I looked up other reviews of the play and found that others had the same
complaint about the character. That
said, Gowrylow plays Simon as well as can be expected. He certainly throws
himself into the part and holds nothing back, and he actually gets some of the
best comedic lines.
Some of the set-ups are
done with video projections, and some of the narration is done by characters
telling their stories in asides to the audience. And there is a random karaoke
number that I thought was totally superfluous.
Matthew Moeller’s set
design leaves a lot to be desired. Moeller can do better, as proven by his work
on OLT’s recent productions Boeing,
Boeing and Educating Rita. OLT
normally has seating on three sides and a backdrop that in most shows in the
back wall of whatever house or apartment the scenes take place in. For this
production they brought in folding chairs to create an in-the-round space which
took away the ability to effectively use a back wall.
Finally, you might want to
know what this play has to do with being pursued by a bear. For the answer to
that you’ll have to attend the play.
WHEN: 7:55 p.m. Thursday-Saturday
and 1:55 p.m. Sunday through April 13
WHERE: Olympia Little Theatre, 1925 Miller Ave., NE,
Olympia
TICKETS: $10-$14, available at Yenney Music Company on
Harrison Avenue (360-943-7500) or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/profile/23136
INFORMATION: 360-786-9484, http://olympialittletheater.org/
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