THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 20, 1994 TAG: 9410180139
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater review
SOURCE: MONTAGUE GAMMON III
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
At its best, Deborah Pryor's new play ``Cock Lane,'' is a genuine palm-moistener of a ghost tale, and a comedy of high slapstick and clever wit.
At other times, a least during its second performance at ODU's Stables Theatre, it seemed unfocused. While the humor never flagged, the build up of tension as the play approached its climax was spotty.
A ghost tale, even one that is presented as a comedy with music, is really an opportunity to savor the thrill of inexorably increasing fear. The audience last Friday was captivated by the final conflict between a mortal girl and an other-worldly spirit, but the approach to that climactic scene was less gripping that it might have been.
One should hasten to say that there were technical troubles at this performance. Even minor glitches in sound, for example, can throw off the timing and concentration so vital to creating delicate entities such as mood and atmosphere.
Technical problems are imminently curable, even for a show as demanding of special effects as ``Cock Lane.'' Upcoming performances should be smoother.
The play itself is an interesting piece, mixing psychological drama with spiritism, joining a coming-of-age plot of a ghost tale tinged with fertility rituals and puberty rites.
The protagonist is one Lizzie, a girl of unstated years living with her father Horace and step-mother Annabelle in London. The year is 1762. Annabelle is eager for Lizzie to start socializing with boys, and precipitates a crisis by attempting to dress her up in adult clothes for a sort of coming-out party.
Lizzie's violent refusal to be made-up reveals the merest tip of a behavioral iceberg. She is a phobic of the highest order. Most especially she is afraid of going outside, and of all that outside represents.
Outside, there are boys who stare and smile crookedly. ``like they know something'' that Lizzie doesn't. Outside, there are girls who push her into the mud to see ``if dirt will stick'' to her.
Outside, the rooster who gave his name to their street crows his virility. Outside, there is danger, for people can get lost and never find their way home.
But inside, one can be alone. When Lizzie hides in the cellar, she comments that the little barred window makes it seem ``like a prison.'' Then she remarks that she doesn't care, as long as ``they all keep out.''
This concept of willingly and happily imprisoning oneself to exclude others is the central, telling expression of Lizzie's psyche.
She conjures up a spirit called Scratching Annie. Annie is initially the visitation of a young girl's dreams, like a genie who gives her the power to terrorize the adults. Soon Annie turns demanding, even threatening Lizzie where she is most vulnerable by offering to turn into a giant bird and carry her away into the ``great wide world.''
While Lizzie is learning that she is in a battle for her own existence, but finding that Scratching Annie is not her true adversary, others in her household are trying to cope with strange phenomena
Much of the play's wit derives from the contrast between Horace's hyper-rationial approach to everything and Annabelle's eagerness to embrace superstition. All the physical laws have been discovered, he claims, so whatever he sees must be explainable by those laws.
Annabelle had any number of stinging rejoinders for his assertions that the sight of Lizzie flying around the room, for example, can be explained by natural laws.
The development of the script itself, rather than the construction of detailed characterizations, seems to have received the greatest part of rehearsal energies. This is by no means uncommon when a new play is being produced for the first time.
All the characters are competent and consistent. Greg Leo as Horace is appropriately meek and unemotional, Celia Burnett as Annabelle is rightly brash and domineering. Burnett also displays a singing voice of uncommon quality.
Christa Jones has been cast twice before, in the past year, as a weird waif of one sort or another. Her performance as Lizzie is full of elements familiar from those previous appearances.
Other performers are Edwin Castillo, Aimee Meher-Homji, Courtney Morse and Lisa Smelser.
Erlene Hendrix directed ``Cock Lane,'' with musical direction by June Cooper, who also did the musical arrangements. The set design by Conrad Winters, the costume design by Angela Winters, and the lighting design by Tracy Fitch were together responsible for a look that combined believability with a sense of the supernatural. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
THEATER REVIEW
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB