[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of The Ghost Road Company’s The Unraveling, conceived and directed by Katharine Noon at The Broadwater Theatre.
The Ghost Road Company is a bit of a theatre unicorn for Los Angeles. They develop collaboratively created performance pieces that are highly experimental and innovative.
They do all this as a collective of artists. directors, writers, actors and theatre artists all workshopping story ideas, characters and imagery with the sole purpose of putting something new and beautiful out into the universe.
Their latest play, The Unraveling, was inspired by the mythical enchantress Circe, daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse. But the historical references are hardly heavy in this modern story. They are a delightful classical teasing thread pulled gently through with a chorus of harmonizing women, fateful reckonings, and some mystical fourth wall breaking.
The Unraveling is a story of loss and reclamation, unexpected and perhaps undeserving friendships, and the intrinsic, unbreakable strength of our roots. But, however frequently we reject them, they just keep growing back.
A classics professor, Susan, is caught flipping out on her epically uninterested students and of course it is filmed with the phones she so heavily despises and it goes viral. Mortified by her own behaviour, she resigns before she can be fired and tries to escape her misfortune by retreating to a little house in the mountains. Yet, whereever you go, there you are, and as the play unfolds, it becomes apparent that it is not only her snotty students and that video she is retreating from.
A young man, Felix, moves into his deceased mother’s house across the hillside and pierces the thin veil of her tranquility. He is following his own path of withdrawal, but in place of her foraging, gardening, bee-keeping, weaving and chickens, he has Cheetos and Gatorade and Sour Patch Kids and video games with loud music and rattling explosions. They meet, it does not go well. Although he promises to ‘keep it down,’ her anger almost ends the story there.
Loneliness can be an unravelling of a different kind if we allow it. Like pulling on the thread of a cloak, if the longing is deep enough and constant, even the most ferocious armour can be breached. These two characters seem destined to connect and they do. However, the story is not only about them; the professor has a daughter and she is brought into this tale unexpectedly and with such karmic might it made the very walls of the theatre rattle.
The Unraveling is a gorgeously magical play, full of music and poetry and the kind of hilarity that can only come from despair. It might be dipped in fable but the relationships and the connections and the people are all absolutely and unforgettably real.
There are many things that add the magic to this wonderful story. The finely tuned and passionate chorus, the live video game reenactments, the puppetry, the heartfelt soundscape and the wonderful dialog. But honestly, it’s the remarkable performances that bind this together. Ann Noble as Susan is astonishing. She is nominated this year for best lead performance by the Drama Critics Circle for her role in the brilliant Crevasse at the Victory Theatre Center. In addition, she is nominated for her role in The Skin of Our Teeth at A Noise Within. And, in this current role, she is phenomenal. Tough, broken, stubborn and regretful. You just cannot take your eyes off her.
Kelvin Morales plays the young man Felix and he is absolutely fantastic. – sweet, sincere, clever and eager to be loved. And then there is the magical Camila Roza as Penelope, Susan’s daughter. She is beguiling and fierce and utterly adorable. What an incredible cast these three make. The supporting cast is also excellent, more co-stars than supporting, each taking up their roles as vintage game emojis or flack clad soldiers or anything else these incredibly inventive theatrical minds can conjure.
The result of all this superb casting and marvelously inventive storytelling is a play I won’t ever forget. The Unraveling is an unmissable play…unique, heartbreaking, funny, compelling and totally believable. These characters are people we know or people we are. They are driven and impolite, heartbroken and brilliant, resentful and lonely and in desperate need of each other.
The Unraveling is a gift of a play and I cannot recommend that you see it enough! Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!!
When:
March 8-30
(Monday, March 17 is a pay-what-you-can performance)
Tickets:
https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?preseason=grc
Where:
The Broadwater Main Stage,
1076 Lillian Way, Los Angeles, CA 90038
The Cast
Christine Breihan, Ronnie Clark, Liz Eldridge, Sika Lonner, Kelvin Morales, Ann Noble, Raven Pinkston, Camila Rozo, and Brian Weir.
The Team
The show will include music composed by Liz Eldridge, with movement direction by Christine Breihan and Adam Dlugolecki, lighting design by Brandon Baruch, scenic design by David Offner, sound design by Cricket Myers, costume design by Adriana Lambarri, prop design by Cate Chapman, puppet design by Emory Royston, stage management by Sam Pribyl, intimacy coordination by Carly Bones, and produced by Mark Seldis, with assistance from Jen Kays