Review of The Whale
by Samuel D. Hunter – Stray Cat Theatre
If this is your first time reading, welcome. It's kind of my first time posting. I encourage you to read the background and "ground rules" of the blog if your have the time.
Full Disclosure #1: I currently serve as the Stray Cat Board
President so I invite you to take anything I say about the company and its work
with a grain of salt. Although, I would argue that you should really take any review with a grain of salt because
they’re always just one person’s
opinion.
But when a lot of
people start saying the same thing about a show, you can season your meal with
those grains of salt and bring out the flavor. I’m not really great in the
kitchen so feel free to call me out on that being a crappy comparison. But the
point is a lot of people are saying a lot of really wonderful things about The Whale. You can see it in the social media buzz that Artistic
Director Ron May keeps updated on the Stray Cat website.
Full Disclosure #2: When I first read through the plays of Stray Cat’s 13-14 season, The Whale was the show I was least
looking forward to this season. I didn’t hate it but it also didn’t grab me in
the way that the other shows did.
The Flick was a
fantastic character study set among the backdrop of a first job in a movie
theatre. I saw aspects of myself in each of the three main characters in that
show and was immediately invested in their story on the page.
I also saw myself in All
New People’s Charlie. Not suicidal
so much, but definitely as a person who has made my share of mistakes and
endlessly beats myself about them (Example: I will still harp on stupid things
I said in middle school randomly when
I’m in the shower or driving in to work). But I too have a colorful cast of
friends that remind me there’s plenty out there to find joy in.
And the upcoming season closer The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity seemed tailor-made for a kid
who spent my teenage years watching the WWF (now WWE because I guess they got
tired of fighting the World Wildlife Fund for the acronym) and performing elbow
drops off of my loft bed onto imaginary pillow-shaped opponents.
But The Whale
was…the play about a different Charlie;
a gay man who has slowly been eating himself to death and decides to reconnect
with his estranged teenage daughter as he realizes his end is nigh. And his
nurse friend, ex-wife, and a Mormon missionary come and go. As I (somewhat
embarrassingly) revealed when I first saw one of the dress rehearsals last week,
I didn’t even remember how the play ended. This is a somewhat different version
than the one I read back in May or June of last year (as I received an older
version of the script while this production uses a newer revision) but that
ending was virtually unchanged; I was just an idiot. Oops.
Coupled with all of this was the fact that it was announced
that the Charlie in this play was going to be played by Damon Dering, Founding
Artistic Director of Nearly Naked Theatre. Don’t get me wrong, I think he is
really good at what he has done with Nearly Naked Theatre over the years and I
appreciate the company’s place within the Phoenix community, but I’ve come to
the realization over the years that it’s just not really my cup of tea. And I’d
only really seen him in over the top character roles (like Satan in Stray Cat’s
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot) or
comedic campy and/or drag roles (like Nearly Naked’s Times Square Angel). How he would fare in the much more dramatic
capacity called for in The Whale was
a terrifying unknown to me.
Of course, if you remember the title of this post, you have probably deduced that my fears have
proven to be unfounded. Dering is a tour de force in this show, delivering the
finest performance I have ever seen
from him. Every ashamed “I’m sorry” Charlie utters reveals a man who has lost
all sense of value in himself. Charlie’s demise began a number of years
earlier, when his partner Alan inexplicably shut down to the world and
eventually wasted away. That Charlie has responded by eating himself to 550 or
600 pounds (it’s been years since he’s been able to weigh himself) speaks to,
in my mind, a fear of following the same path.
He watched the man he loves wither and die and never wanted anyone to
see him do the same. But in fighting against that fate, he succumbed to
overcompensation. Despite the loss (and gain?), he wants so desperately to
please everyone but, due to his weight and health, sees himself as nothing more
than a burden trying to find if he did anything
right in his life.
This search brings in Michelle Chin as Charlie’s
angry-is-an-understatement daughter: Ellie – who hasn’t seen her father in
fifteen years. Nearly everything out of the high school senior’s mouth is venom
and Chin relishes every moment of it, all while occasionally showing the observant
viewer the cracks in this defense mechanism armor. Ellie Hates Everybody. But
the beauty of Chin’s performance comes in those moments where she realizes that
maybe she doesn’t want to hate
everyone and tries to make the smallest of connections, all while refusing to
let her guard down because she’s been hurt before; as have we all.
Johanna Carlisle rounds out the family unit as Ellie’s mom,
Mary. Weary of raising the walking hellfire that is Ellie and still bearing the
scars of being left by a man she loved for another man (which I imagine was a
much bigger blow fifteen years ago than it might be in the more open-minded era
we currently reside in), Carlisle provides a quiet heartbreak at seeing what
Charlie has become. This was another excellent surprise for me because it
served as a stark contrast to many of the bombastic characters I’ve seen her
play in the past. There are so many lovely moments between Dering and Carlisle
where the silences between these two tell more story than the writing ever could.
Finishing the string of excellent performances are Stray Cat
newcomer Austin Kiehle as Elder Thomas and Anne Marie Falvey (who; Full
Disclosure #3: I have been impressed with/intimidated by ever since her one-two
punch of This and Time Stands Still with Actors Theatre)
as Liz. Kiehle easily imbues the Mormon Missionary Elder Thomas with the drive
to help those he meets on his journey. Equally impressive are the ways in which
he slowly reveals that all might not be as bright and sunny with Elder Thomas
as we initially suspect. At the onset, Liz is introduced simply as Charlie’s
nurse and friend. But we quickly learned that before that, she was sister to Charlie’s
partner, Alan. In the world of this play, that might make her story the most
tragic. First, she had to suffer through her brother’s rapid wasting away over
the course of a few months, unsure of why he just gave up and unable to help
him. Then, she spent years watching after Charlie – her closest connection to
her now-deceased brother – as he gradually
kills himself. Falvey shows us Liz’s love for Charlie as the person in this
world who made her brother happy, as well as the anger that comes with his
refusal to fight against path he’s chosen. She clings to him in the same way
that he would be lost without her.
Charlie’s apartment itself acts as the last unofficial character
of the play in an excellent design by Eric Beeck. Boxes of essays from
Charlie’s work as an Online English Tutor stand piled against the walls; a
kitchen that Charlie hasn’t been able to use himself for years; a door back to
the rest of the apartment that probably wasn’t always a double-wide; a picture
turned so it’s facing the wall because the sight of it became too difficult to
bear. All of these features are apparent from the minute you walk into the
theatre and give you an incredible sense of the history of this place that
you’ll be spending the next two hours as you watch a week in these characters’
lives.
Despite my initial reservations toward this show, the
incredible performances, heart-wrenching story, and May’s pacing and staging
made The Whale into one of my
all-time favorite Stray Cat productions. If you’d have told me that a year ago,
I’d have called “Bullshit!” But here I stand. And rarely have I been happier to
be proven wrong. (And I certainly hope this essay would get Charlie’s stamp of
approval.)
Stray Cat Theatre’s The Whale continues through March 1st with performances at the Tempe Performing Arts Center (132 E 6th St, Tempe, AZ 85281; the NW corner of 6th St and Forest Ave). For more information like tickets and show times, visit http://straycattheatre.org.
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