Review: OPEN at Nu Sass

Allison McAlister carries Crystal Skillman's 80 minute play, Open, with assurance and emotional clarity. As "The Magician" named Kristen, McAlister lures an audience into the play using the familiar rhythms of a magic show. But Open is actually the love story of Kristen, a student of and writer about magic, and the love of her life, Jenny.

The young women meet at the Strand Bookstore (in the wee small hours of the morning in the city that never sleeps), and they both have vagabond shoes. Kristen's from Indianapolis, and Jenny hails from Delaware; but simply emigrating to the gay-friendly environment of the West Village doesn't magically change one's origin story. Parental acceptance or hesitation thereof figures in the formation of self-acceptance wherever home may be. Because Kristen's family hasn't provided 100% of the former, she struggles to evolve the latter. Thus, she is not as fully open to the kind of relationship Jenny thought they were having. And that is not even the tragedy with which Open closes.

Skillman's play avoids linear plotting in favor of non-chronological, character-driven episodes. McAlister narrates sometimes and relives Kristen's thoughts and feelings at others. She has conversations with characters recorded in Mikibear's sound plot or with people at the other end of her cell phone. And sometimes her vocal energy does weaken. But she swiftly regains it for the next beat because McAlister has mastered Stanislavsky's concept of throughline. All that means, civilians, is that you will forget you're watching a performer and be taken inside of someone's life.

Director Dom Ocampo, who also did the lights, does let McAlister down once near the end of the play by placing her so far below the only lighting instrument which is on that the audience cannot see her face during some significant moments. Otherwise, the lighting enhances the magic tricks that Kristen's Magician practices, and it cheerfully suggests the decorations that Jenny so loved. The cold, white lights in a hospital are also accurately and unfortunately represented.

The strength of Allison McAlister's solo as a strong woman losing a lot while finding her courage is the magic wand of Open, in rep at Nu Sass through May 28.

(Photo by Kayode Kendall)

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