After Ashley

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

If Justin would only say what he really wants to say without beating around the bush. If he could forget wading through the poppy field of political correctness allowing his raw feelings to find their own words, everyone would know exactly where he stands.

Tobias Segal as Justin Hammond and Ruth Eglsaer as Julie Bell in the Denver Center Theatre Company production of After Ashley. Photo by Terry Shapiro

Au contraire.

In her brilliantly written play, After Ashley, Gina Gianfriddo who obviously has a great deal to say, who erased the poppy field of political correctness from her crisp thinking, constructed her character Justin Hammond from the inside out. Like Pinocchio who from a wooden puppet became a real boy, Tobias Segal takes Justin from words on a paper and turns him into an angry discombobulated very real young man in a complete unadulterated knockout performance.Segal’s performance as Justin in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s production of After Ashley directed by Anthony Powell is simply awe inspiring, 24-years-old and Segal reveals the depth of human understanding from A to Z. Not only is he able to reveal the depth, but also knows precisely how and when to show it through word inflection, body language, timing, gentility, and uncontrolled rage.

Justin has reason to be angry, an element his father Alden Hammond (Sam Gregory) cannot allow himself to comprehend.

Segal becomes the 14-year-old Ashley, sprawled on the sofa confined by mononucleosis subjected to his mother’s boredom. Angela Reed captures the Hippie minded Ashley Hammond who uses a lot of words saying nothing, forgets when it is time for Justin to take his medication and is consumed by her go-nowhere-do-nothing life. For her this is a perfect opportunity to give her son the sex education talk, which embarrasses him no end. Leading to her sense of boredom, the differences between her and Alden, the loneliness, the stir-crazy defense, Justin encourages her to seek other interests, to grab initiative and do something. Justin becomes the comforter and Ashley becomes the comforted.

With sharp quirky punch lines on the surface After Ashley appears to be another dysfunctional family comedy, until it takes a jagged curve turning on itself.

Alden hires a homeless man to do yard work, who rapes and kills Ashley. Justin becomes a celebrity as the 911 boy refusing to leave the house until help arrives.

Justin wants to remember his mother the way she was: funny, bored, disillusioned with her marriage, honest, open, philosophical, a once-upon-a-time-free-spirit who lost her way. They were friends, and he loved her.

Alden, on the other hand, handles his grief in a very different manner, writes a book called After Ashley romanticizing her and their relationship. Three years after her death Alden is invited to appear on a TV program with a rah-rah bright-eyed-bushy-tailed emcee David Gavin (John G. Preston). Preston rides the rah-rah TV host Preston for all he is worth complete with the gregarious slap on the back and plastic smile. Ratings are what count no matter what the cost.

Alden basks in the overwhelming attention about his “wonderful” book about his “wonderful” wife fueling Justin’s anger over hypocrisy by his Father and David. He wants honesty and truth. He wants Ashley’s legacy to reflect who she really was: a bored housewife, brimming with ideas yet devastated over not having any markable skills for a job, her gnawing isolation from a loveless marriage, her devotion to her son, and her honesty no matter how uncouth. Justin’s biting one-liners create a knowing laughter framed by poignancy.

In spite of the embarrassment on camera, for both David and Alden, David pursues Alden for his own TV program entitled After Ashley. The media pursues with its glib slap on the back plastic smiles. Alden’s show attempts to re-enact sex crimes “tastefully” reminding the audience of his own Ò“ortured ordeal” of his wife’s brutal rape and murder.

After all, that is the point of the play: media treatment. Whether it is a reporter shoving a microphone and camera in the face of a family who just lost everything they owned by a Katrina catastrophe, or in the face of a parent who just witnessed their child being shot by a drive by killing, or someone who has lost a friend from a drunken driver, the question always is: how do you feel now? The game is to be the first to get it on the air; the game is to run the upbeat rah-rah personality into the ground. Truth doesn’t matter. Integrity doesn’t matter. The point is who can be there first, who can get it all on the air first. Sensational-firsts mean high ratings. High ratings mean prime time slots, personalities lined with fame, quenching a fickle audience’s hunger for fried knowledge that has very little to do with truth or integrity.

Ironically or poetically, Terry Johnson’s play Insignificance runs at the Mizel Center which also deals with media and the carving of personalities to an image they had better fit or else. Image, that’s the issue. It is time someone raise the consciousness of expectation for media integrity. Two playwrights have taken on the mantle, and that is a good thing.

Justin’s initial encounter with Julie Bell, deliciously played by Ruth Eglsaer, creates sexual tension within a boxing match of digging into truth. She recognizes him as the 911 kid, which he deplores.

David Ivers is enough to drive even the most complacent audience member nuts with his over the top grand portrayal of Roderick Lord; a therapist of mixed origin, a therapist oozing with syrupy tranquility to get to the truth between Alden and Justin. Phoniness reigns as it plays how do you feel game.

Gionfriddo sharply takes on the Jerry Springer/Oprah Winfrey exploitations that the sicker people are, the stronger the entertainment, the higher the ratings. She goes after those who amply profited from the 9/11 attacks, and Justin with his growing rage is her thinking, mocking, anger-filled funny lines spokesperson.

Justin’s anger leads him to revenge as his relationship with Julie grows in its own way of growling, biting give and take. Justin would be a difficult person with which to hang out with his judgmental battering ram approach to everyone he encounters. His solution is simple people with problems should stay off TV. “People on TV are eating bugs, trying to marry millionaires. Shame is an idea whose time has come.” This is a very funny line that gets a very hearty laugh, resounding with gigantic truth.

All Justin wants is to be heard and listened to. He wants his thoughts to be taken seriously, and the more he is ignored and boxed in to be shut up, the louder, the more vicious come his counter attacks. He just wants an honest legacy for his mother, but that doesn’t get high ratings.

After Ashley’s blistering satire on the media’s exploitation of victims has Bravo, humor, truth written all over it. With all of its twists and turns, Powell gives direction and purpose so everything fits and works together. The stellar cast applies their expertise with careful construction.

This production deserves and needs to be on everyone’s must see list. The performances will knock you out; the biting thought provoking insights and diatribe will exercise the brain muscles every time the TV is turned on. Justin will not be forgotten anytime soon.