Review: GIRLS & BOYS at The Gamm Theatre
This arresting production runs through January 19th
The Gamm Theatre welcomes 2025 with ‘Girls & Boys,’ a powerful, compelling drama about a woman’s pointed retelling of her marriage, motherhood, a successful career, and an unspeakable tragedy.
Written by British playwright Dennis Kelly, the nameless narrator of ‘Girls & Boys’ is painstakingly portrayed by Donnla Hughes, whose extraordinary, unforgettable performance is one for the record books and a veritable master class in acting. For just under two hours, with only a chair on stage, Hughes interminably captivates the audience with her charm, candor, mindfulness, and resolute disposition.
Under the careful, intense direction of Rachel Walshe, Hughes relays her character’s story from the beginning, when she first meets her future husband in line at an airport. Her tone is playful and merry, and her memory of the situation involving two models who try to cut him in line is comparable to an anecdote one would hear from a standup comedian—and the laughter that follows.
Her amused temperament quickly transforms to the romantic excitement and delirium associated with finally meeting the proverbial one, using the word “insane” to describe their courtship, and she even suggests leaving your significant other immediately if you haven’t ever enjoyed such intentional frivolity and madness. Soon thereafter, we learn about her budding career in documentary filmmaking which her husband fully supports, or so it seems.
These first-person, informative vignettes about her marriage and career are interspersed with reenactments of parenting episodes with her daughter, Leanne, and son, Danny. In the simplest of terms, Leanne wants to create things, and Danny wants to destroy them, and the demands of being a mother, as well as the expectations of a wife, illustrate her admittedly one-sided argument that human behavior is palpably related to gender. She doesn’t so much use biology as an excuse—it would be impossible to find one when she reveals what transpired—but rather a supposed theory for why her life turned out the way it did.
Hughes’ piercing delivery is so personal and convincing—with her deliberate movements, thoughtful inflection, and the occasional sound effect or subtle change in lighting to bolster her storytelling—that it is hard to believe the script isn’t autobiographical. Without divulging any further detail, early on she ominously declares, “I think a lot about violence,” and later forewarningly reminds us that her grisly experience “is not happening to you. And it is not happening now.”
Although ‘Girls & Boys’ is irrefutably unsettling, the production is impressive, first and foremost because of Hughes’ outstanding portrayal, and a remarkable theatrical achievement.
‘Girls & Boys’ runs through January 19th at The Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd in Warwick, RI. For tickets and information, call 401-723-4266 or visit www.gammtheatre.org.
Photo by Cat Laine
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