TheaterWorks, Hartford, CT
through November 9, 2014
by Shera Cohen
Some reviewers take notes during a production. Some
reviewers use special pens that double as flashlights -- useful for writing in
the dark and very annoying to fellow audience members. Some reviewers take no
notes. This reviewer tends to fall into the first category. Those productions
that make the short list are exceptional because the last thing for a reviewer
to think about is to interrupt the concentration, understanding, and personal
connection by clicking a pen and trying to find the next clean page of a
notebook. “Annapurna” is the latest entry in the third (and best) group.
Two characters, ex-marrieds, hold this one-act play together
as its audience hopes for a second act, third, or the rest of the characters’
lives. While no blood is shed, sweat and tears fill the stage from start to
finish, and at the same time softened by humor. Debra Jo Rupp portrays the
ex-wife who walks into her former husband’s trailer unannounced 20 years after
she walked out, and Vasili Bogazianos dons the apron of a poor slob -- at
first. Crisp, short, funny scenes with blackouts between each open the story.
Mixing Rupp’s dead-pan responses to Bogazianos’ broad and often salacious
remarks kick off what will soon become a see-saw of jibes, love, hurt, love,
secrets, and love.
 |
| Debra Jo Rupp & Vasili Bogazianos |
The actors make it obvious that this woman and man have each
gone through their own versions of hell, separately and together. Yet,
“obvious” is a misnomer. The actors, along with director Rob Ruggiero, have
accomplished unbelievably difficult work in creating what is seemingly
“obvious.” At the fulcrum of the verbal and sometimes physical see-saw is
another character, unseen but ever-present. The exes’ conversations (and
silences) about this third player bring him to life. No easy task to fulfill.
Another “character,” albeit not living or breathing, is the
set design by Evan Adamson. Every bit of “decor,” from the minutia of the
location of a filthy burnt pan to the large unmade bed strewn with smelly
blankets (well, they looked smelly) is exact.
After the play, a young patron was overhead saying, “It was
so much like real life I forgot it was theatre.”
