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Flowers Out of Season
By Edward Crosby Wells
Produced by People’s Theater of Chicago
EP Theatre
1820 S. Halsted (parking and entrance through the alley)
Chicago, IL
Tickets: 773-371-1868. $25 (2-for-1 offers at www.peoplestheaterchicago.org )
Thursdays thru Sundays at 7:30 pm
Running time is 1 hour 45 minutes with one intermission
Through Feb. 3rd
A Different Flower Power
People’s Theater of Chicago’s world premiere of Edward Crosby Wells’ thought-provoking and recently re-written Flowers Out of Season is a production that promises revelations regarding working rural poverty, American health care, and religion as well as a healthy dose of dangerous eroticism. To some degree the show delivers on all of these promises – brilliantly at times – but there are more holes in the story than the relatively strong performances of the young cast can overcome.
In a talk-back that was more of a talk-to (especially as the audience was obliged to attend following the opening night performance), Wells described his style as layered and ambiguous. For this theatergoer his ambiguity crossed the line into incoherence far too often, especially in the lengthy and tedious first act. There, we meet a young couple, Buck (Gerardo Cardenas) and Dawn (Kristina Klemetti) whose desperation has led them to send their children away to grandma’s house so that their parents can fulfill a suicide pact. The exact details of the couple’s plan are slowly and ambiguously revealed; however, the flaw in the act is not its ambiguity regarding the plan, but rather its failure to let the audience in on what has brought the couple to this desperate decision. We hear about a crippled child who needs new leg braces that the family’s insurance will not cover, but Buck and Dawn just do not appear that desperate or that crazy. So much that I wanted to know about them was not even hinted at and a lot of time was spent redundantly pouring over some quasi-magical power content that bored thanks to director Madrid St. Angelo’s uninspired staging, weak technical support, lackluster combat scenes and a string of lesser distractions. It shouldn’t matter that Buck becomes the first man in history to put on a pair of cowboy boots with no socks, but in an act this slow, even things this minute grab one’s attention. Only during the final moments of the dramatic climax to the act does the emotion of the situation ring true and at that critical instant, instead of a New Year’s Eve rocket explosion, the staging and tech support delivers a popcorn pop unworthy of Orville Redenbacher.
It would be hideous form to show up at the theatre after intermission, but had I arrived an hour late, my opinion of Flowers Out of Season would be quite different. In the second act, a few hours later, we see Buck in a sexually charged, way creepy encounter with the older woman, Daisy Winter (Remy O’Brien). This act is the original short story by Wells that led to the play (The reader will remember that I had to sit through the talk-back, right?) and it is powerful stuff. The tech flaws and other first act problems are still present, but the script itself finally provides material that the actors can work with. Cardenas’ aggressively sexual portrayal of Buck makes sense in this context and the action is strong enough to keep the audience’s attention out of his boots. There are some fine moments between Cardenas and O’Brien and the ending of the play is riveting. It is unfortunate that the playwright felt the need to create the first act prequel to the story in the stage conversion. The tragic events of the first act must be revealed, but another way should have been found.
The bottom line on Flowers Out of Season is that it has some worthy moments and it will certainly generate after theatre conversation with friends. Unfortunately, much of that conversation is likely destined to be about what could have been rather than what was.
SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED
Randy Hardwick
randyontheglobe@yahoo.com for comments
Date Reviewed: January 11, 2008
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