Playwright Kaite O’Reilly requires that “peeling”, a one-act she wrote in 2002, be performed by deaf and disabled actors. She has rejected a number of US theaters’ requests that would not honor these parameters. Seattle’s Sound Theatre Company was ready and willing to provide the needed authentic casting and so has the privilege of staging the US premiere of this thought provoking and unique dramatic experience. The work somehow blends Beckett’s sense of the absurd and Ibsen-like stringent calls to action with the grandeur of a Euripides’ Greek tragedy. This off-the-wall mixture produces a dynamic night of theater.
O’Reilly sets her piece in the back row of a women’s chorus during a fantastical production of Trojan Women. The three characters of “peeling” are apparently stationed far upstage from the crucial and often bloody events of the tragedy. The overwhelming challenges confronted by the women of Troy will run parallel to the plight of the three chorus members we see on stage in “peeling.” Initially they are placed in three confining platforms: some kind of tent, a collection of skulls and body parts and what appears to be a coil of ropes. Each woman is attached to wires and pulleys for her first scene in Trojan Women. The three could hardly be more physically constrained. And yet they deliver their assigned speeches with a focused poise. They will survive this!
The three actresses long offstage moments during this production of the Greek tragedy make up the lion’s share of the script. Here they discuss the indignities of having small roles in a show, the obstacles disabled women face when they are considering having children, the horrors of the eugenics movement and good recipes for gazpacho soup. O’Reilly’s scattershot approach to her themes keeps the audience on their toes throughout, and while the crazy quilt nature of the work perhaps sacrifices some sense of dramatic momentum, it succeeds in landing a number of punches, battling all the world’s forces that get in the way of respecting the dignity and compassion for those who may look and talk differently than most of us.
Carolyn Agee, Sydney Maltese and Michelle Mary Schaefer make up the play’s cast. Each woman ably handles her moment to shine provided by O’Reilly’s script. Schaefer often combines her lines with some beautiful work in sign language. Agee’s anguish over the possibility of becoming a mother is effectively delivered. Maltese is able to mix a sharp as tacks acerbic wit with moving scenes where she shares her vulnerability. Her accounts of the ill treatment she received from her mother for being different are some of the most moving moments in the play.
Director Teresa Thuman successfully stages this demanding work, somehow corralling the sundry elements of the play into a more or less solid piece. Projections designer Jared Norman does outstanding work, providing captions for the script throughout.
Peeling runs through August 24, at the Center Theatre in the Seattle Center Armory, right in the middle of the Seattle Center. For more ticket information go to Soundtheatrecompany.org.