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    Theatre Review: Intersecting Damage in Red Herring’s Unidentified Human Remains

    Red Herring Theatre opened their second show in the appropriately (for the play) dingy still-being-renovated Franklinton Playhouse this weekend with Brad Fraser’s 1989 cult classic Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, directed by Michael Garrett Herring.

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    Kelly Francone left as Jerri / Jordan Davis right as Candy. Photo by Amy Planchet.
    Kelly Francone left as Jerri / Jordan Davis right as Candy. Photo by Amy Planchet.

    The story centers around the malaise of young adulthood, mid-20somethings sorting through the wreckage of their earlier dreams and trauma in the shadow of AIDS in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Actor David (Levi McGrath) has moved back and resigned himself to waiting tables and living with his college friend and one-time lover Candy (Jordan Davis), herself grappling with body image issues and eking out a living as a book reviewer. Their other college friend Bernie (John Connor) cheats on an offstage wife and seems to drift from one blackout to another. Kane (Mike Writtenberry) is a co-worker not sure how to process his feelings for David. Candy finds herself torn between gym pal Jerri (Kelly Francone) and bartender Robert (Chris Jones). The story is tied together by narrator Benita (Steve Emerson) a prostitute friend of David’s, part sardonic conscience and part detached, omniscient observer.

    Steve Emerson left as Benita, Mike Writtenberry center as Kane, Levi Mcgrath as David. Photo by Amy Planchet.
    Steve Emerson left as Benita, Mike Writtenberry center as Kane, Levi Mcgrath as David. Photo by Amy Planchet.

    The fuel of the story is the terror of mortality given a double-bladed immediacy by the disease they all acknowledge but don’t seem quite to believe is as close as it is as well as a serial killer stalking their town. Despite the insistent throb of these two clocks, the characters can’t seem to overcome their selfishness or find ways to deal with the trauma each of them has in their past that don’t involve hurting other people. The characters take turns fragmenting the story as a Greek chorus or collaged snapshots around whoever’s in the center of the action. The cliched material of the main story gets its juice from showing us the way the characters’ pain spreads among the group like watching a spider-web crack take over a sheet of ice.

    It’s to Fraser’s play’s and this production’s credit that no one gets off easy. While we root for Davis’ Candy to find happiness and sympathize with her trying something she hasn’t before, it doesn’t claim her treatment of Jerri is anything other than despicable – it’s just the mundane despicable most of us have committed more than once. The two least fleshed out characters here, the other two points of Candy’s love triangle, are given real life by their actors; we feel the pain and confusion of someone who puts herself out there radiating off Francone and the harsher, surface mirror of Candy’s confusion in Robert’s depressive placidity looking for a reason to explode..

    McGrath’s effortlessly cool David holds the audience’s attention the same way we see him commanding the other characters, everything’s a take-it-or-leave-it seduction, making it more terrifying as he slowly loses it. Connor’s Bernie is chilling – a perfect example of the fun-loving troublemaker after giving in to all his darkest impulses for a few years so desperate not to look into his own void that he lashes out. Emerson’s grimly hilarious Benita walks that line between observer, participant, and carnival barker, subservient to everything on stage but making me lean in and wonder where that character was before and after.

    Herring’s staging in the round (and his set design) and Darin Keesing’s lighting emphasize how small the world is at that age, how much of it is spent in tiny spaces: bedrooms, couches, tiny kitchens, staring at a television set. Dave Wallingford’s sound reinforces the ominous nature, layering humidity over these gray scenes and occasionally flooding the world before the audience with waves of noise like sirens. All strong choices for a disturbing play.

    It’s not perfect. Unidentified Human Remains is so much of its time it feels like it hasn’t aged well, there’s a patina of grit that doesn’t quite feel earned. And it’s long. The amount of repetition in its two and a half hour running time at times seemed a little condescending; like it didn’t give the audience enough credit to know what was happening without saying it three times. But when it clicks, when those moments rise and plunge daggers of memory into the audience’s eye and make at least some of us go through our mental list of apologies we owe and haven’t delivered, it’s a righteous, electrifying ride.

    Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love runs through October 30 with performances at 8:00 pm on Thursday through Saturday and 2:00 pm on Sunday, October 30. For tickets and more info, visit redherring.info.

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    Richard Sanford
    Richard Sanfordhttp://sanfordspeaks.blogspot.com/
    Richard Sanford is a freelance contributor to Columbus Underground covering the city's vibrant theatre scene. You can find him seeking inspiration at a variety of bars, concert halls, performance spaces, museums and galleries.
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