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Recommended
Tom Williams
January 18, 2006
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Abandonment
is a passionate, fresh ghost story
Mounting a ghost story, especially one that moves from one time period
(the present) to the Victorian era (1865) is a tricky enterprise to
tackle on stage. It becomes even harder on The Actors Workshop
Theatre’s small storefront stage. But under director David Kropp’s
clever direction, Abandonment
works nicely. British novelist, Kate Atkinson’s first play is part
ghost story, part spoken novel, part exposition featuring interesting
female characters from two time periods that eventually collide.
Christopher Scholl’s set design aptly speaks Victorian mansion.
This Midwest Premiere Equity show is set in Canada and it parallels the
story of two troubled women who inhabit the same house 140 years apart.
The modern historian, Elizabeth (Rebekka James) comes from a
dysfunctional family where the now deceased father abused the mother
and where her half sister Kitty (Laura Jones-Macknin) acts out her pain
by being promiscuous.
We see the angelic Agnes (Marisa Sanders), candle in had, haunt the
present from her Victorian roots. She was a world traveler yearning to
freedom and emancipation but settling for being a governess in an
unloving family. The Victorian mansion ties the two women together.
Each search for happiness and each fear abandonment.
Elizabeth was abandoned at birth and found in a men’s washroom. She is
obsessed with finding her roots. She hires a “wood guy” to fix the
woodworm, dry rot and deathwatch beetle in the house’s floors. The
handyman, Callum (William J. Watt), is a New Age modern hippy type free
spirit who reminds me of the guy who spent years painting Murphy
Brown’s house in the TV show.
Add Susie (Kathy Holahan), Elizabeth’s lesbian best friend and a visit
from Ina, Elizabeth and Kitty’s negative, nasty mother (Marssie
Mencotti) and the family secrets slowly are revealed.
Director Kropp
deftly moves from each era with splendid, quick blackouts. We
see Elizabeth have her picture taken by the womanizer Alec (James D.
Farruggio) and presto, flash of light, a blackout and we’re back in
1865 with the Alec becoming Merrick, the womanizing husband of the
house’s owner, Laetitia (Laura Jones-Macknin). Only Marisa Sanders
(Agnes) and Rebbka James (Elizabeth) play one character. All others
smartly move from modern to Victorian with appropriate dress and period
accent.
Abandonment
is a modern drama with mystery elements, part Gothic romance dealing
with love and loss, grief and joy, time and space as parallel
characters and storylines interweave seamlessly until they collide. Precision staging and quick pacing keeps
the tension mounting.
Playwright Atkinson’s work is heavy on ideas and exposition both with
modern subjects such as Chaos Theory, Genetic Design, Karma and Animal
Spiritualism in a witty, funny discourse. Add the Victorian discussion
of rationalism, scientific discovery, evolution and atheism, historic
determinism with Victorian spiritualism and we learn much of the
prevailing ideas from each era.
The dominant theme of abandonment ties each character together as we
experience their angst as they struggle to live in the present and let
go of past incidents that still haunt them.
This is a finely
constructed work, filled with intelligent, empathetic characters bound
up in a enticing mystery worthy of a modern ghost story. Laura
Jones-Macknin, Rebekka James and Marisa Sanders highlight a terific
cast.
Abandonment
is an ambitious blend of modern drama and Victorian mystery that
delivers sophisticated entertainment. You’ll like this passionate,
vibrant play.
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