- OTHER MEDIA
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- by Jeffrey R Smith
- a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
October 18, 2007
- Exit on Taylor, never reluctant to stage daring experimental theater,
is currently hosting the Ambit Theatre Company which is presenting ATTRITION;
written and directed Marilee Talkington. Rarely does one experience the
intensity of such a tightly integrated play: it braids sight and sound
and script into a high tension steel cable that tugs the audience through
a gauntlet of emotions.
The fractured pieces of the set (by Andrew Lu) hold the characters of the
play in the isolation tanks that their broken spirits have culled, condemned
and exiled them.
The lighting (also by Andrew Lu) is a metaphor for the agonizing stygian
depths of the psychological chasms in to which the characters have tumbled
and lie marooned. The script, both tragic and poetic, dovetails the characters
by having one character step into the syncopation of another character's
monologue to finish his or her thought.
The play consists of four characters: a poet who has lost most of her memory
and all of her words, a young women who was sexually abused by her grandfather
for nearly ten years, a young man who takes up arms against an abusive
step-father only to ratchet up his abuse while serving life in prison,
and a female business executive who tries to out run the furies of her
self-imposed limitations only to find herself assaulted by paralyzing anxiety
attacks. Miss Talkington's script has a structure akin to Greek tragedy:
the same strengths that vaulted and elevated the protagonists in early
life serve as scaffolds and gibbets in their later lives: the poetess is
surrounded by her poems all of which collectively chant to remind her that
she has Alzheimer's disease and can barely assemble or hold a thought much
less craft a poem; the young man that mustered the courage to end a senseless
cycle of abuse for both his mother and himself finds himself tormented
in prison for taking up arms against a sea of injustices, and the female
executive accidentally invites in crippling self-doubt when uses sky-diving
as a tool to taunt fear and to exhilarate herself with intimate danger.
The collective effect of set design, sound and script, which is sustained
by masterful acting, is not only riveting but it allows the essence of
the play to penetrate deeper into the consciousness of the audience.
ATTRITION brings one face to face with personal demons: fears of how the
abrasive sands of time will eventually erode our corporeal and mental beings;
the baggage, scars and un-lanced carbuncles we tote from our early life
experiences, and the tenuous nature of strength and courage that can capriciously
abandon us without warning.
ATTRITION makes one aware of the major league demons that torment so many
people of the world and ATTRITION makes one appreciate with good humor
the minor league pesky imps that needle us with mere trifles in our relatively
secure lives.
If you would have liked to have trucked with Dante,Virgil and Menninger,
then this show is definitely your portal to the psychological netherworld.
It is equal parts entertainment, edification and epiphany.
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