Squall

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

In the Arvada Center’s new Black Box Theatre, Modern Muse Theatre Company presents the regional premiere of Squall written by Elizabeth Hemmerdinger playing through May 27, 2007

Karen LaMoureaux and Martha Harmon Pardee in a scene from Modern Muse Theatre Company’s Squall.

Directed by Billie McBride, Squall promises to be a cat and mouse psychological thriller laced with rich humor. The two-actor cast consists of Martha Harmon Pardee taking on the role of Diana and Karen LaMoureaux as an erratically strange woman known as Cordelia.

On a wonderful set designed by Tina Anderson, the play centers itself in Dianas childhood summer home. Diana, a TV personality, carefully sorts through items in the house. Three boxes indicate things to keep, things to discard, and things to think about twice. Lost in memory over each item Diana seems relaxed. Her mother has recently died, and she reflects there is far more to the memories than what lies before her. Most of the work is done when a loud knock at the front door shakes her from her reverie.

Standing at the door is Cordelia, a nervous distraught woman who verbally insists on having an appointment with the realtor. She’s determined to buy Diana’s house. Her darting eyes and hyper nervous demeanor tells a different story. OK, she got the time mixed up for meeting the realtor, which sounds plausible, but her actions deny what she says. She doesn’t want to leave, but Diana finally gets her out the door. Quiet again. It’s a stormy night. While Diana stands on the back porch, Cordelia sneaks back into the house intent upon looking for something. When Diana discovers her rummaging around, Cordelia comes up with a story about her car needing water. If itŐs storming outside with lightning and thunder and rain pouring down the back of the house reflected by shimmering lights, how is it possible Cordelia isn’t drenched?

Cordelia’s rattling verbally and physically around begins to wear on Diana’s nerves. Cordelia has already recognized Diana for who she is feigning a schoolgirl’s awestruck reaction to meeting someone famous.

As it turns out, Cordelia knows a great deal about Diana and about her mother who has been in and out of mental institutions for several years. When Diana realizes Cordelia knew her mother at the last institution she was in, tension heats up. Cordelia and Diana’s mother had become quite close at the institution, and, of course, the mother passed on a great deal of information to Cordelia as well as her feelings of abandonment by Diana and her loneliness. Through several phone calls before the mother’s death, she promised to leave something of importance for Cordelia in the house, but Cordelia would have to find it on her own. When Diana realizes Cordelia was behind all of those phone calls showing up on the phone bill, acting as though a mystery was solved, why didn’t she just call the number to find out whom her mother was talking to? Of course that would have spoiled the premise of the play, but it does stand out as a plot weakness.

At first glance the premise of the play may appear far-fetched, but the mind of the mentally ill does not follow a logical stream of thought. Consequently, it’s very possible someone could promise to hide something of importance, or at least what seems to be important, in a house.

The juxtaposition of the two characters balance each other well with Pardee and LaMoureaux’s performances and the direction follows a logical pattern of hyper frantic pathological development.

A psychological thriller implies one would be sitting on the edge of their seat periodically holding one’s breath in anticipation of what will happen next. With Squall, that never happens.

The problem with the play is lack of material for the characters to divulge. Some information is given too soon allowing the plot to become too transparent providing very little anticipation. Pardee and LaMoureaux provide solid performances, but there just isn’t enough material to warrant a two-hour play.

Cordelia accuses Diana of being cold. With a smirk and a shrug, Diana claims she is not cold, but there is enough distance and coldness in her character to make it difficult to care about her. What she has faced, many many people have had to face: contending with a mentally ill family member. Cold aloofness does sneak into the picture simply because people don’t know what to do or how to do it. Consequently, they end up doing nothing without much assistance to cope. If the play could have dug deeper into her past, allowing vulnerability to shine through the aloof veneer, it would make it easier to relate to her as a human being.

Cordelia’s hyper unexpected subject and mood changes catches the eye, and yes, it is understandable why such a disturbed young woman would become attached to Diana’s mother in the institution, but the playwright doesn’t give her much opportunity to unravel her past. It is touched on but no depth or insight provided making it difficult to really care about her except to marvel at her actions.

This is a could-have-been psychological thriller if the content hadn’t been so obvious.

There are a few humorous lines, but not enough to call it a comedy, and the humorous lines come from Cordelia who rattles on without thinking most of the time. Off-the-wall statements would be expected, but that doesn’t necessarily make them funny.

Would that the playwright take this play back to the drawing board, perhaps add another character for content, dynamics and the unexpected, give reasons to care about the characters, add some sharp twists and turns that would be impossible to anticipate, and it could rise out of the doldrums into a realm where it honestly could be classified as a psychological thriller.