The Power of the Ensemble


Reviewed 11/14/04

Theatre thrives in Arizona, but niche theatre is still sputtering. Black Theatre Troupe and Arizona Jewish Theater Company are doing well, but The Alternative Theatre puts up plays only when its Artistic Director writes them, Téatro Bravo appears to have a random production schedule, and there’s never been a company devoted to women’s issues and women artists. Until now. arizona women’s theatre company offers their second play and first multi-week run at The Space in Phoenix, Eve Ensler’s Necessary Targets. This is not a polished production or a mind-blowing script, but this evening does offer one important thing that makes it a must-see: a collection of people who are bursting with heart and who are earnest in offering new horizons in the Valley of the Sun.

Ensler, famed for her Vagina Monologues, here explores the realities for women refugees in Bosnia. Two Americans and five displaced Bosnian women are thrown into a room with a pot of strong coffee for answers and healing, both of which are not necessarily related. The Americans, WASPishly uptight J.S. (Carolyn Allport) and determinedly aggressive Melissa (Judith Eisenberg), are quite different types. J.S. is a creature of comfort, while Melissa travels from war to war to study women’s post-traumatic stress disorders for her book. Equally different are the Bosnian women living in a refugee camp that was a former dairy: Nuna (Gillian Reilly) is young and believes Hollywood fairytales to the detriment of her own self-image; Azra (Victoria C. Werba) is a septuagenarian who has been torn from her quiet spinster life with her beloved cows and goats and simply wants to go home to die; Jelena (Hilary Hirsch) is middle aged and holding onto a marriage that has soured since the war took her and her husband away from their comfortable lives; Seada (Juel Mesnard) clutches her baby fiercely and lives in denial, immediately displacing J.S. for her mother and rushing to her in the night to avoid the nightmares; and Zlata (Sue Siseley) is a doctor who must deal with the demons of her idyllic past and the circumstances of her psychological war scars. Melissa and J.S. fight on the best way to help these women, while the women themselves form their own support group without the aid of established psychological techniques.

Director Deborah Carrick has kept the blocking simple, choosing instead to save the flourishes for well-chosen moments. She has the actors move about nervously, bouncing off each other physically as they do with Ensler’s words. She transforms the scenes between America and Bosnia magically, and it is that flourish that defines the evening.

The actors cannot be described singly. Some do stand out and others are not as strong, but this is a group effort. The balance of this cast is its strongest attribute, and to split them in discussion is to diminish their work as a unit. The proof is in the sniffling. As the play drove to its crisis, there was palpable tension in the theater. When the facts and horrors were revealed, the audience was in tears, myself included. When an ensemble is able to achieve this strong an effect, why quibble over whose accent is wrong or who is better at capturing their character’s inner conflict? Ensler’s script asks for a collective, and Carrick’s cast delivers.

The technical elements are strong for the small stage. Steve Gonnella and Scott Johnson’s lighting provides coverage and mood, the unbilled set is appropriately stark when needed and lush when desired, and Dorinda Whitley’s costumes are consistent with characters.

The catharsis at the end of the Sunday matinee was as jubilant as it was heartbreaking. Though the stories of these women hurt, the future of the cast, crew, and company gives me hope that we will be able to add awtc to the list of thriving niche theatres in Phoenix.

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