'Talking With' speaks volumes about women's lives
by Alec ClaytonOriginally published in The News Tribune (Tacoma), January 23, 2004.
The raw material of Jane Martin’s "Talking With." at Olympia’s Garage Theatre seems to be not so much a script as life itself, as eight actresses open their hearts in eight eccentric monologues.
Winner of the 1982 American Theatre Critics Association Award for Best Regional Play, "Talking With" presents eight women who tell the stories of their lives, or confront seminal moments in their lives. They simply talk to the audience, inhabiting their characters through gesture and inflection.
Heather Malroy sets the stage as an actress preparing for her curtain call. She is seen as a self-assured beauty whose confidence verges on haughtiness as she applies makeup and talks down to the audience. She conveys pride through the upward tilt of her chin and through exaggerated gestures with her arms and hands. But her pride is belied by repeatedly glancing off to the left as if she is afraid someone is going to see her for the pretender she is, and finally she drops her pose to confess her insecurity.
Next up is Audrey Voon, a junior at Capital High School. She portrays a teenage girl who shares the pain of her mother’s slow death. Her performance is wonderfully understated, relying on small gestures such as the clutching of a marble in her hands to convey pure grief.
Erica Fiebig bursts on stage next with high-energy movements and a manic laugh, portraying an actress who will go to any length to get a part. I will not give away her diabolic plot to be cast, but I will say that she goes from absurd comedy to chilling horror in the blink of an eye. The acting ability that won her a nomination for the 2003 Irene Ryan Acting Award for her role as Teresa in "The Memory of Water" and other roles at South Puget Sound Community College is put to effective use here in a most bizarre role.
Colleen Powers plays a cowgirl with a drawl and a strut that seem totally unaffected. She bemoans the way corporate powers destroy the good things in life -- like rodeo -- "turn(ing) your pleasure into Ice Capades."
Kelly Johnson plays a baton twirler whose obsession with twirling leads to frightening religious rituals performed with razors in the dark of night.
Jodi Hooper stammers and folds in on herself as an eerily believable snake handler. (It is worth noting that the audience did not applaud when Hooper left the stage, as they had for each of the other women. Their stunned silence was a tribute to the power of Hooper’s performance.)
Kathy Dorgan portrays a woman seeking spiritual apotheosis at McDonalds. She worships French fries, makes fun of Burger King and sees the light of God in the golden arches. It would be easy to make a caricature this creature, but Dorgan takes the opposite track, using small gestures and quiet speech for a kind of naturalism that makes the unbelievable believable.
And finally, Erin Taylor plays a former doormat of a housewife who has been transformed by a traumatic experience into an intense brassy woman who collects tattoos on her body as remembrances of all the people who have marked her life.
These women share a common humanity that is alluded to by Malroy in her comments about insecurity at the beginning and is reinforced by Taylor at the end when she says we must "wear our lives on our skins."
I spoke of one actress using gesture and inflection to make the unbelievable believable. The same could be said of each of these actresses, which I believe is a tribute to the director Jeff Kingsbury, who leaves his mark in ways subtler than Taylor’s tattoos.
"Talking With" plays in repertory with "Three Viewings," written by Jeffrey Hatcher and directed by Shawn M. Riley.
© 2004 by Alec Clayton