Synchronicity Space was a perfectly-named theatre for this piece, in which combined production efforts achieved eerily effective moments on an efficient budget.
Lee Gundersheimer displayed much directorial virtuosity. Actors played above and below stage and behind scrims with movement and humor to infuse life into stomach pumping, killing a man with words, or waging a battle of aphorisms.
John McDermott as the hero played a third generation fireman who burns books in a fireproofed, repressive world. He played bewilderment well, but his changes of heart were like flash pots: unexpected, without a lot of smoke or heat.
Holly Grief as his wife cried real tears and delivered a potpourri of impressions - from Stanwyck to Valley Girl. But with 27 roles to triple-cast there was little synchrony between the actors and their continuum of styles.
For example, Lou Kylis as the hero's neighbor tasted rain with gusto; but her real age seemed out of synch with the teenage characterization she favored. And to cast young Martin Everall in important scenes as a an elderly English don created the feeling of a make-do college production.
Atli Kendall was a cheerfully talented actor, but too inherently sensitive for the crotch-grabbing fire chief whose dramatic character reversal should not only have touched but surprised.
Others in the cast included Karin Anderson, Kathleen Bloom, Christina Fanizzi, and D. Candis Paule.
Patrick McCaffrey and Rochelle Stempel are actors to watch. Thomas Coté made the most of his wonderful introduction: "Call me Ishmael." Fred Harlow maybe overdid the Mad Hatter a bit, but Ruth Jaffe was absolutely convinced of her lost cause.
Props and sets (designed by J. C. Svec) were excellent, and included a marvelous futuristic model of a hound's head, a working fireman's pole, and an amazing television screen.
Russell Hodgson's lighting created eerie beauty in a furnace and a barbecue pan, and contributed warm emotion to the ending of the play.
Cassey Chou fashioned a mostly colorless wardrobe with serious attention to details like futuristic suspenders; and composer Reed W. Robins used all his skills to create first-rate sounds of portentous music, thunder, and altered vocal timbres.
This production riveted the imagination but not always the attention. Sometimes the temperature soared, but not quite as high as the title promised.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger