[L to R] Rhodes, Radochia and Waldron perform. Photo from Simple Machine Theatre. |
SOMERVILLE—After walking down Elm St. and settling in Davis
Square Theatre for Simple Machine’s presentation of rogerandtom, a few objects come into view. The four chairs, stacked
white boxes, the bookshelf loaded with blank white books and the antique
telephone are meant to represent Penny’s apartment. Really, though, they’re
just a couple of chairs, some boxes, a telephone and a half-full
bookshelf—right?
Directed
by Stephen Libby and written by playwright Julien Schwab, rogerandtom is about the collapsing of existential notions. It’s a
play within a play. Its characters are estranged from themselves and from each
other. The universe of reality they’ve inhabited starts to slide from the start.
Confusion falls at their feet and from their mouths, at times letting the
audience in on the joke, and other times laughing right back. Waves of
omniscience bounce off the walls.
The acting from the three-person cast is to be admired.
Penny, played by Anna Waldron, exhibits the pent-up articulation of a
fictitious character too naïve to know she exists only in the play. She
shrieks, she cries, lets out sighs of relief, and makes the audience swing with
her every mood. Stephen Radochia who plays Richard, Penny’s husband, anchors the
whole charade, keeping the audience and the characters calm and collected
amidst the chaos. Andrew Rhodes’ Roger is the glue between Pretend and Reality.
He spat with nervous energy, always cautious, with eyes shifting strongly and
hands moving in and out of the pockets of his swishy vest. They are characters
trapped in their own skewered timeline.
Schwab, who has lend an outstretched hand to the medium
with various productions in New York and Los Angeles, has crafted a very
peculiar type of play. It breaks the fourth wall down early on then, scrambles
to pick up the blocks and build it up again. It could’ve been wrenched from
Charlie Kaufman’s brain or skimmed of Eugène Ionesco’s
thoughts. It’s absurd, yes, but it’s more than just that.
Rather
than rely easily on the befuddlement of the audience, it strives to dig deeper and
uncover hidden truths of each character. Through each wacky, neck-craning
layer, a real story unfolds inside a larger story until they both run parallel, revealing a strange bit of sentimental surrealism
at the end. It could be everywhere at once or nowhere at all. As Radochia’s
Richard says, “It’s about family, love, but mostly, it’s about theatre.” rogerandtom plays through April 7 with a
live conversation with Schwab and the rest of the artists hosted by Veronica
Barron at 3 p.m. today. Say nothing if you understand.