A Disturbing World Not ‘Far Away’ Enough

And that is precisely as it should be.

Director Aoife E. Spillane-Hinks ’06 pulls her own audience into the terror and chaos experienced by her characters. Rather than the three sided set-up typically found in the Loeb Experimental Theater, the entire group is seated together to act as a silent witness.

Or perhaps they are a jury. We are practically implicated ourselves when, in the play’s most disturbing scene, a grotesque catwalk of chained prisoners reminiscent of death camps make their way past us with no protest on our part.

The play opens on a scene of domestic peace: Harper (Jojo S. Karlin ’05) is knitting in an easy chair and her young niece Joan (Aidin E.W. Carey ’07) descends the stairs because she cannot sleep. But as Joan begins to describe the screaming, bleeding people she has seen outside and her uncle beating the children with a metal stick, red stained clothing appears on the balcony above.

The quiet country refuge transforms into a station of some nightmarish and unknown plot. Harper’s futile attempts at explanation and soothing stiffen the audience’s resolve that something is terribly wrong, but plant the seeds of doubt that things aren’t necessarily that clear.

Fast forward several years. An older Joan (Sasha G. Weiss ’05) is making hats and playfully responding to the advances of her coworker Todd (Alan D. Zackheim ’06). The disturbingly blank-faced mannequins they use (Michael R. Von Korff ’07 and Katherine J. Thompson ’05) belie their innocent dialogue. Again, the simple contentment of the scene is shattered when we discover through their unconcerned dialogue that the hats are being used for the parade of battered, terrified prisoners whose bodies are burned at its end.

The play’s scenery is minimal: a chair or two, a table and the occasional hat material. Instead, our attention is focused through light, sound and incredibly creative costume. Garish blue and red and a combination of what sounds like church bells and clanging crowbars puts added stress on the gauntness and desperation of the prisoners’ parade, while Harper’s house contains an uneasy silence, set in shadow, so that we never quite know what will emerge.

The acting is superb. My only frustration was that the bond between Joan and Todd never fully cements. His boyish earnestness in the face of injustice and her detached naiveté of the happenings in the world make an odd match. The fact that they later marry is a little hard to grasp.

Particularly impressive is Karlin’s portrayal of Harper. She captures the perfect blend of maternal familiarity and suppressed hysteria that makes her so dangerous. Only a catch in her voice and grip of her hand reveals the potential of her hatred.

We never find out where the people at Harper’s house are going nor whether they’re connected to the grisly parade of prisoners. The play’s final scene finds us back at the house in the midst of a war that involves the world so totally that involves the world so totally that flowers, ants and even rivers are taking sides and cannot be trusted. Todd is on leave, and Joan has fled for a day to be with him, but arrives too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

As Joan rests upstairs, Harper and Todd argue about who their allies are.

“No, the Latvian dentists have been doing good work in Cuba,” says Todd.

“But Latvia has been sending pigs to Sweden,” Harper insists. “The dentists are linked to international dentistry and that’s where their loyalty lies, with dentists in Dar Es Salaam.”

The audience laughs loudly at such lines, if only to allay the unbearable tension for a moment.

The play’s end is sudden and, true to form, unexpected. We are left with no clear idea of what we were meant to absorb, just a sense that all of it is not nearly as far away as we would wish.

-—Staff writer Jayme J. Herschkopf can be reached at herschk@fas.harvard.edu.