The Chalk Boy
Warehouse – Beyond

Remaining Performances:
Thursday, July 17, 6:30pm
Friday, July 18, 9:00pm
Saturday, July 19, 9:00pm
Sunday, July 20, Noon

They say: “Beneath its boring facade a Northwest town hides a nasty secret, and the girls from local high school’s Christian Athletes Club are here to tell you about it. Murder, the occult, algebra – this is a deathly black comedy that punches as hard as your high school bully.”

Glen’s take: The above blurb — and the opening four minutes or so — would seem to augur a campy, over-the-top sendup of high school malaise, but Joshua Conkel’s The Chalk Boy has got more River’s Edge than Heathers in its dramaturgical DNA. And, much as I love me some “School’s-cancelled-today-because-Kurt-and-Ram-killed-themselves-in-a-repressed-homosexual-suicide-pact!” goodness, Conkel’s choice to ground his tale in a grubbier, less outsized reality makes for an admirably layered, thoughtful and slyly funny evening.

As you watch, you get the distinct sense that a different company could take the same script and have a sillier, campier time with it. Conkel’s play is built on the shifting alliances of four high school girls, and it wouldn’t take much to reduce them to types — Bitch, Witch, Jesusfreak, Dyke-in-Training — that would make for fish-in-a-barrel comic fodder. Certainly there are jokey elements (Wiccan ceremonies performed with cake servers and battery-operated candles) aplenty. And who knows: Wednesday night’s premiere was sparsely attended, and I suppose it’s possible that, given a larger crowd and bigger response, the actors might feel compelled to push their performances bigger. But I don’t think so. And I certainly hope not.

At the heart of The Chalk Boy is Jennifer Harder’s Penny, a prematurely weathered young woman who convinces herself she’s in love with a boy who’s gone missing. By imbuing Penny with a soft edge of world-weariness — she’s not so much alienated as she is disappointed — Harder helps keep the production rooted in the specfic; the other actors seem to key off her efforts. Kate Huisentruit is possessed of a killer deadpan, Mary Catherine Donnelly brings something small and true to each of the several roles she assumes, and Marguerite French is careful to supply her angry bitch Trisha with humanizing self-awareness.

Not every element emerges clearly; the sense of foreboding Conkel attempts to create — he wants you to feel the threat hanging over his characters, to sense the Something that waits for them in the darkness at the edge of town. It’s not there yet, but could be, with a bit of massaging. And I can’t shake the impression that Conkel doesn’t really stick the dismount — his ending is more of a stopping — but those are quibbles.

See it if: Um… you have a pulse? Look, I got nothing: Just see it, is all.

Skip it if: You were totally on your high school’s Spirit Week Committee, and Crazy Hat Day? Your idea.

Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 12 @ 1:00 PM (Warehouse Beyond)
Sunday, July 13 @ 6:00 PM (Warehouse Beyond)
Thursday, July 17 @ 9:30 PM (Warehouse Beyond)
Saturday, July 19 @ 5:00 PM (Warehouse Beyond)
Sunday, July 26 @ 7:00 PM (Warehouse Beyond)

They say: “It’s about unrequited lust and inappropriate behavior. Death, love and lucid dreaming. About trying to seduce the wrong people in the wrong way for the right and wrong reasons. It’s about customer service, nightmares and the present moment. 4 women, 1 man.”

Brian’s take: There I was, sitting innocently in my second row seat, jotting down a note or two in my steno pad, when all of a sudden one of the waitresses in Yearning to Itch… hurled a Twinkie at me for no apparent reason at all.

Well, maybe there was a reason.  Maybe she could tell that the notes I was jotting were unflattering.  Maybe she could intuit that I was copying down the lines she was speaking with very large and confused question marks scribbled next to them.  Maybe she was pissed at me about the fact that I just didn’t get it.

Which would make sense–if a reviewer writes negative things about you, why not throw a spongy, cream-filled delicacy at him?  That would be a motivated action, which would make that Twinkie moment the most coherent in this entire play–a (luckily) 35-minute dream sequence in the style of post-inferno Strindberg if Strindberg lacked any kind of style.  The characters insert the word “lucid” before dream, but there is very little lucidity to be found amidst the platitudes, awkward gestures, and downright nonsense that riddle this piece.  Sure, there are a few funny moments and lines here or there–maybe 5 or so.  Otherwise, I just left confused, befuddled, perplexed, and covered in bits of Twinkie dust.

See it if: You find yourself captivated by one-line musings about the very play you are watching.

Skip it if: You’re near a couch and have the chance to take a 35 minute catnap–your own dream will probably be more rewarding and less expensive.