BWW Reviews: Epic Theatre's Season Closes with Suprisingly Safe ORLANDO

Issues surrounding gender and gender equality have always been important and deserving of attention and discussion. At this moment, these issues seem to be especially at the forefront of our conversations across this country and beyond. It seems like the perfect moment for a play that focuses on these issues in a fascinating and engaging way. Unfortunately, the production at Epic Theatre of Sarah Ruhl's Orlando fails to fulfill it's potential for generating those important questions and conversations. It does the opposite, seemingly playing it safe and keeping those important issues at a great distance from the audience.

Based on a novel by Virginia Woolf, Orlando concerns a young man living in Elizabethan England. Adored by women, he is wooed and loved by such royalty as the Queen herself, a Russian princess and an Archduchess. One morning, after a night of debauchery followed by days of sleep, Orlando awakens to find that he has turned into a woman. In her new form, she must figure out how to navigate not one but two new centuries and all the inner desires and outside expectations that come with being a woman in those times.

Playwright Sarah Ruhl has become one of the most celebrated and successful dramatists of the present moment. There are actually two plays by her running in Rhode Island right now, so it's a great time to check out her work, especially if you are already a fan. If you're not already a fan, and truthfully, you should be, it's hard to say whether or not Orlando will win you over.

The biggest problem with Ruhl's script is the way she chooses to have her characters tell the story. Almost the entire play is in told in the third person, with actors telling us what has happened, and occasionally taking on the roles to act out the scene they are describing. The actress playing Orlando, for example, is never actually playing Orlando, not in a direct way. She's playing a person who is telling us the story of Orlando and it never feels like she is telling us her own story. It always feels like she's telling us second-hand the story of this completely separate person, named Orlando.

This separation causes a distance and disconnect between all of the actors and the audience. We never feel that we're actually watching real people experiencing something real that really happened to them. We never have the chance to truly connect to what happened to them and how they felt about it. And we never get to actually sympathize with or root for them. In truth, it's hard to really care at all about what they're telling us.

Part of that also comes from the story they are telling. The whole thing feels a bit lightweight. There's very little, if any, dramatic tension, in the story. It's never clear if there are any real stakes here. If there are, they aren't very high. Yes, we see Orlando question and wonder about his/her situation, but there's never any feeling of a real, true struggle. Ruhl certainly poses questions of gender and sexuality, but it's wrapped in a package that doesn't force the audience to face or answer those questions.

Those problems may or may not be increased by this production. Director Kira Hawkridge has created what is a surprisingly safe performance of this play which seems to lack any real risk-taking or envelope-pushing. There's an extended dance scene in the first act that comes across as rather tame and dull, a good example of a number of frustrating scenes where it feels like they could go so much farther but they don't.

Hawkridge is an exciting young director who has created a number of remarkable productions. She has a clear vision and a talent for bringing that vision perfectly and brilliantly to life. Where she might need to be careful is the trap of making all of her productions look and feel too similar. A fan of her work who has seen all of her previous productions will definitely notice echoes or glimmers of her previous shows in this one. While there are great things to carry over and apply from one show to the next, there is a danger in having too much sameness. The challenge is to maintain that commitment to vision while also keeping things fresh, vibrant, unique and new.

There may have been some choices specific to this production that also didn't work out as well as they might have. With a script that really distances the audience and never gives them a chance to connect with the characters, there might have been a benefit to more audience interaction, actually bringing them into the story (this happened once, that I noticed, but not again). It's also debatable whether or not this show benefitted from an all-female cast. Making some or all of the ensemble male may have actually created more dramatic moments or scenes of heightened tension or forced the audience to look at the story in a different way.

Hawkridge has assembled a talented group of young actresses for this production and, as always, leads them into perfect harmony as an ensemble. They work together fluidly, creating scenes and moments in synchronized perfection, often using only their movement or voices to do so. On the other hand, they never really seem to be very excited be there. That is to say, there are few, if any, signs of real emotion of any kind from them. There's a dream-like quality to the proceedings, everything is told in almost a whisper, which really doesn't help the audience get into or care about the story. It's hard to raise the stakes when the actors barely raise their voices.

As Orlando, Tammy Brown is excellent but in a frustrating way. One can't help but feel that there's more to her performance here, something that she's holding back. While she has a great stage presence and brings a wonderful personality to the role, it might have been nice to see her really cut loose at some point.

The always-excellent Paige Barry emerges from the ensemble to act out the role of Sasha, the Russian princess who loves Orlando. We know Barry has great talent in her but she never really gets to bring much to this role other than a believable accent, which is the only thing that separates Sasha from the ensemble member Barry plays the rest of the time. Fairing slightly better is the equally talented Kerry Giorgi, who, as the Queen, at least gets to bring some moments of emotion to the part her ensemble member performs. Given those chances, Giorgi has a few exciting or touching moments which do draw the audience into her character's life are among the play's best.

As one-half of the Duke who lusts after Orlando, Christine Pavao brings some wonderful personality to the character. It's a short-lived performance, but one that Pavao takes full opportunity of to have fun with and give the audience one of the play's funniest moments. Stephanie Traversa also does a very nice job when she gets to step out of the role of ensemble-member for a moment as a man loved by Orlando after he is turned into a she. The ensemble is filled out by Ottavia De Luca, Colleen Farrell and Ashley Moore, who all do an excellent job.

Hawkridge and Marc Tiberiis collaborated on a simple but effective set design but the costume design by Hawkridge doesn't work as well. Keeping everything white with just a touch of color here and there to indicate characters works fine in the first act. During act two, though, after Orlando has turned into a woman and donned a black outfit, the entire ensemble wears a combination of black and white. The change doesn't do anything to help tell the story and might have audience members wondering, "What's the point?" Is it supposed to indicate that they are all both male and female? They've been both male and female all along, so why not keep things the same for the entire play? Another interesting choice is that aforementioned black outfit that Orlando wears when he becomes a woman. Is the only way to define Orlando-as-woman to put the actress in a tight, sexy black outfit, playing up her feminine sexuality, as if that's the only way we're going to know that yes, she's now a woman? It seems a little obvious and inside-the-box, in terms of thinking.

For a show that deals with questions of sex, both gender and the other kind of sex, the production just isn't sexy. In the end, the lack of envelope pushing and risk taking makes the whole thing seem as sterile as the white outfits worn by the cast in the first half. All together, it just feels like a missed opportunity.

Orlando is playing at the Artists' Exchange's Theatre 82, located at 82 Rofle Square in Cranston. It is running through June 14th with performances on Friday and Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $15 for general admissin and $12 for seniors and students and may be purchased through the Artists' Exchange website at http://www.artists-exchange.org/epictheatrecompany.html.

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