tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300395900787148509.post1858344119201223422..comments2023-10-20T08:55:42.757-04:00Comments on Critic-O-Meter: The UnseenRob Weinert-Kendthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04015688507553252146noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300395900787148509.post-13172639909489608222009-03-23T10:27:00.000-04:002009-03-23T10:27:00.000-04:00Thanks. Sorry I missed those. I added them in.Thanks. Sorry I missed those. I added them in.Lindahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15341231489185317489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300395900787148509.post-1620887832571325662009-03-22T18:19:00.000-04:002009-03-22T18:19:00.000-04:00nytheatre.com reviewJosh Sherman · March 11, 2009T...nytheatre.com review<BR/><BR/>Josh Sherman · March 11, 2009<BR/><BR/>The Unseen, for any self-respecting theater snob, demands to be anything but.<BR/><BR/>A riveting example of deceptive simplicity, The Unseen, fueled by the dazzling wordplay of playwright Craig Wright, turns solitary confinement into a potboiler thriller that not only sucks you in, but puts a choke hold on you until it has your undivided attention. With masterful direction by Lisa Denman and terrific, spellbinding performances from a first-rate cast, the Cherry Lane Theater might just have on its hands a sellout for as long as it wants one. The Unseen is a darkly comic, deeply thought-provoking, emotionally disturbing, and soul-searching masterpiece that will resonate with you for far longer than the blissfully quick 65-minute run time.<BR/><BR/>The Unseen opens in an unnamed totalitarian regime where two prisoners, Wallace (Steven Pounders) and Valdez (Stan Denman), are each trapped in solitary, in what looks like a cross-section of a beehive. They speak to each other over the walls and through barred windows and it appears that they have never actually seen one another. They barrel through massive swaths of Beckettian banter and contemplate their existences—or complete lack thereof. They are required by their circumstances to invent their own worlds to survive—Valdez believes that there is a female prisoner in an adjoining cell, Wallace has created his own Mayan calendar out of kitchenware to best predict the precise moment they can both escape. Both are interrupted from their metaphors and flights of fancy at regular intervals by ear-splitting jail sirens and the occasional waterboarding from their reluctant tormentor/guard, Smash (Thomas Ward).<BR/><BR/>The Unseen is brilliantly structured by Wright as an unfair piece from the beginning—we never learn Wallace or Valdez's crimes, we never know what country we're in or who the dictator is—and that, in turn, allows it to achieve timelessness and a universal resonance. Part of the beauty of the script is that it behaves much like a musical composition where the fermatas in the piece provide us with space to probe our deepest feelings. At the moments when our protagonists' hopes are shattered, our own hearts sink as we inevitably think of our own prisons and our own failures as human beings that led us there. Smash (somewhat ironically) becomes the emotional pivot of The Unseen and his dual role as both abuser and therapist is too psychologically intense to be reduced to a sentence. (In other words, you really have to see it.)<BR/><BR/>I can report, unequivocally, that the work of all three actors is phenomenal. Wright's language is downright poetic and he has given award-worthy monologues to the character of Wallace, which Pounders devours and delivers with stunning panache. Denman, as Valdez, has the dramatic timing of a trained sniper. And Ward manages to evoke pathos for a character that performs regular acts of bloody violence.<BR/><BR/>Deeper still are the spiritual questions that Wright raises during the play's duration about the nature of our roles on life's grand stage: Who are we? Why are we here? Does any of this matter? Yet he pushes far beyond high-school level existential bullshit into a world where Wallace's dreams may or may not have become a reality lived by Smash, or Valdez's dreams of a fellow prisoner knocking on the wall may or may not be a secret language between them. Mystical without being religious or pushy, The Unseen addresses age-old questions that cannot be answered by Wright or any other mortal—but he achieves the playwright's dream of making his audience think about the questions on their way out the door.<BR/><BR/>Wright has written several plays, including Recent Tragic Events and Orange Flower Water, but lately has been working on television projects such as Lost and Dirty Sexy Money; he triumphs with The Unseen, and we should all thank him that he has decided to come back to give us a phenomenal gift.<BR/><BR/>For your sake, make sure that The Unseen isn't unseen much longer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300395900787148509.post-49001276860001675492009-03-22T18:16:00.000-04:002009-03-22T18:16:00.000-04:00Nightmare Scenariosby Edward KaramThe Unseen revie...Nightmare Scenarios<BR/>by Edward Karam<BR/>The Unseen reviewed March 8, 2009<BR/><BR/>Two men in grim, adjacent cells talk to each other through prison walls. They have been incarcerated for years and are repeatedly tortured for information—or rather, initially for information, but now pointlessly, as a distraction to their tormentors. The men in this Kafkaesque nightmare are named Valdez and Wallace. Wallace calls Valdez “Mr. Valdez,” but Valdez is more casual and uses “Wallace.” To pass the time, they speculate on what they don’t know—The Unseen of the title.<BR/><BR/>Dramatist Craig Wright’s Kafkaesque situation invites some comparison with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, whose characters also wait in uncertainty and near despair for some resolution to their fate. The Unseen is bleak but not depressing, and it feels especially timely and universal in Lisa Denman's taut, riveting production. The men might be in Abu Ghraib, or Guantánamo, or any number of hellholes around the world. Their names, too, suggest a breadth of places the action might be occurring. "Valdez" calls to mind a banana republic; "Wallace" might be American or British, of which neither nationality has escaped accusations of torture in the struggles with Iraq and the IRA, respectively; and their guard, Smeija, has a distinctly Slavic name that summons up the brutality in the Balkans in the 1990s.<BR/><BR/>To pass the time, Wallace and Valdez exchange words in shorthand about their torture: “Trips to the sink, making knots … twice, the whole drooling gang…” Wright leaves it to the listener to surmise the specifics of the horrors they endure. The men play an old game that starts “I went to the ocean and took…,” and they list various objects whose names must be in alphabetical order. They speculate on whether the prison layout is irregular or not. “We don’t know the structures or rules,” says a worried Valdez. “We don’t know the grand design.” (His point is skillfully demonstrated by Sarah Brown in her asymmetrical set.)<BR/><BR/>Wallace moves objects on the floor of his cell—saucers and a piece of chalk and other objects—in a pattern that only he understands. Suddenly he announces that they must escape that day, that all the signs point to its being their only chance. But a visit from the hulking, black-masked thug Smeija, nicknamed “Smash,” reveals that Wallace’s sanity hangs on a thin thread.<BR/><BR/>Smash is not only a guard but one of their torturers, and Wright indulges in pitch-black humor as Smash (played with frustration and intensity by Thomas Ward) complains that he’s been too nice to them and is being punished with double duty on his birthday. Wallace tries to butter him up—“We’re here for you”—but it doesn’t work. “All you people think about are yourselves,” fumes their anguished inquisitor. “No one with a heart is safe around you people.”<BR/><BR/>Steven Pounders as Wallace captures his character's suspicion and confidence, with a streak of arrogance; he’s not sure that Valdez isn’t a spy. Valdez (Stan Denman) has opposite qualities: he is more upbeat and hopeful, certain that someone is in the adjoining cell and aching to make contact. He’s open enough to admit that his captors don’t trust him because they think he lies—even though his admission jeopardizes Wallace’s trust in him.<BR/><BR/>As time passes, Valdez exhibits his own delusions with a theory of a vast array of tunnels under the earth with the entry points in graveyards that is just as chilling as the moment that Wallace accidentally learns that his hope of escape is built on an illusion.<BR/><BR/>Both actors, superb in their roles, seem to have done their own makeup just as superbly. They look like victims of brutal beatings, with scars, welts and bruises disfiguring their bodies; costumer Carl Booker’s torn and shredding clothing matches their skill.<BR/><BR/>Although the physical action is limited, Wright’s dialogue takes up the slack with unexpected lyricism, from the story of a button that Valdez’s mother has taught him, to Smash’s gruesome descriptions of what he has done to a prisoner. And his ending suggests, hopefully, that somehow humanity can never be extinguished, that an unseen spark survives even in the most inhumane circumstances. The play may be short, but it packs a wallop.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com