Treading in "A Body of Water"

“A Body of Water” as a work itself reminds me of a bizarre love-child between “50 First Dates” by Adam Sandler (to an uncomfortable degree), and “No Exit” by Sartre – with perhaps a bit of bed-hopping with Beckett in there just to muddle things up a bit more by waiting for something that may or may not exist.

It was interesting to me how obvious some of the lines came across for a surreal drama, like “pretending to be happy is better than nothing.” It seems like a rather blunt indication of where the author is heading with this show – sometimes people just don’t want to find out who they really are, don't know how to, or don’t understand others around them. I’ve heard people say they wished they could just “forget.” But what would it be like to have your memories wiped clean? This is what Lee Blessing is attempting to explore with “A Body of Water.”

So then the question remains – if you don’t have your memories, and if the only thing that makes you, “you” is your experience (your past) and your genetics – then what else do you have? Only the present. And that is why, then, language becomes so vastly important: when Wren is introduced, the world between Avis and Moss, the couple with double amnesia, crumbles. The present is all they have – and she toys with it for reasons known only to herself.

Lindsay Palinsky as Wren, daughter-in-potential, seemed to be channeling Ellen Page from “Hard Candy” – she had two modes of being – a wolf, and a wolf under sheep’s clothing. It actually diluted her effectiveness if her part was, in fact, meant to undermine their reality. She’s a bit over-reactive where a sweet tone would have been much more cutting or a pout could have been more cunning than the perpetual scowl she wore through most of the show. She was effective, however, in keeping the audience guessing as to her actual motives and we never did find out if she was an angel or devil – and that was probably Mr. Freeman’s point, but it made a rather dull point. She was likely both and neither at the same time.

Mara Schaberg was cast in the role of Avis, the unfortunate woman who awakes nude, next to a man she can’t remember, in something of an embarrassing position. Ms. Schaberg aptly played shy and confused, though as the story progressed she seemed stuck in that place, with her voice elevated unnaturally through a lot of the show. When Ms. Schaberg did relax and respond to Mr. Hays, in particular, she did seem for a few moments to forget about the audience and simply respond to the actor in front of her, and it was then she loosened up. Avis seemed more willing to want to believe in the word-games of Wren, more willing to play along, because trying to discover the truth was too hurtful and overwhelming.

Michael Hays left me wishing that he could have found an anchor on stage as well, though he also had bright spots in the softer moments of the show. He seemed rather bored, most of the time, and then angry, vacillating between frustration and apathy in the tenor of his voice. Mr. Hays does well with the lighter lines, using the gruffness of his voice to deliver the uncertainties of “she’ll be back” with not really knowing, but hoping, and giving the audience a bit of a glimpse into the needs of his character. I never believed though that this couple woke up and didn’t remember their past – they were too blasé for me to really buy into it or care that much about them, though the concepts they projected I did find interesting.

Since Avis and Moss have been robbed of their history, all they HAVE is the present, and they share these moments with the audience. They need to be real, to sound real, to have feelings, to be terrified, to be confused, to be human. The essential flaw of the play was that though surreal – the “real” part was missing. “Surreal” simply asserts the idea of removing the components of logic and societal restrictions from a situation and then allowing the pieces to fit back together again without any imposed rules to follow. Blessing provides the clean slate and situation, and Avis and Moss have carte blanche to genuinely explore all avenues of “being.” At least, until Wren shows up and throws a wrench in their Eden.

Mr. Freeman chose an interesting concept to bring to the stage – these people are just as afraid to be awake as they are to be asleep, but then who is to say they are awake at all? Just as Sartre’s Garcin, Estelle and Inez cannot escape each other, these three are bound together as well. It could be heaven or hell, Milton might suppose…and so it would appear, Lee Blessing.

Mr. Freeman did surround himself with excellent technicians – the lights, sound and stage crew were all spot on. For his first directing endeavor Mr. Freeman took a big bite – I admire his ambition and want to encourage him to continue to chew away, but to remember that one may masticate just a bit too much and make mush out of a mignon.

I think it was Wren who said “the power is in us every day to be happy or not”…it’s as if Avis and Moss have jogged away from their lives and never came back, making a mutual pact to disavow their prior existence, unless that is they only exist in the mind of Wren, or Wren and Avis never existed at all, or Moss – well, you get the idea…but it does make me wonder how many people live comfortably in a rut and forget the power of the present.

For that reminder, Mr. Freeman, well done.

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And for those who want to know the Occam’s Razor reference, here’s Wiki’s definitions:

Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred.

Another version from Einstein:

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor