The Sense of What Should Be at The Playwrights' Center on 11/8/09
By: John Olive
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| Dylan Frederick and Joanna Harmon in THE SENSE OF WHAT SHOULD BE. Photo Credit Kevin McLaughlin |
Dominic Orlando wrote and directed the exuberant The Sense of What Should Be (at the Playwrights’ Center, 2301 E. Franklin, through Nov 21, workhauscollective.org) which opens Workhaus's third season. Adam, a bespectacled, frighteningly intelligent and articulate high school boy, a comics aficionado, calm and crazed, yellow notepad in hand, worms his way through the dark underpinnings of a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Adam wants, he says, the town's secrets. He gets them. He focuses first on the Rev. Bruce Stanley, recently defrocked (because of his sexual liaison with the 18-year-old Tessa). The he connects with Marie, the Popular Girl, whose steady beau is Derek, the star quarterback. Then the mayor. Then the techies at the local hydro-electric dam. Adam's instinct for the jugular is impeccable and so is Orlando's writing, smart and layered, funny and dramatic.
If in Act 1 Orlando tightens the story's rubber band, in Act 2 he lets it go, as Adam, the Reverend and the chirpingly crazed Tessa concoct and execute a plot to anonymously (they hope) take the dam, get $10 million in diamonds, and escape. Act 2 is where the play takes off, if you like spirited comics-fuelled theatricality. Or maybe it falls apart if you insist on story logic and reasonable character development. Myself, I'm in the former camp and I greatly enjoyed the team's insane antics. I wouldn't have thought the sound system in the small Waring Jones Theater was up to the howling dynamo of the dying dam, but it is. Great stuff.
Adam drives every scene and the play lives or dies on the ability of the actor playing this character. In Dylan Frederick, Orlando has discovered an astonishing talent. Frederick's work is taut, subtle, rich. He discovers human variety in what, in lesser hands, could easily become static and dull. Frederick is quite young, still in high school, and we will be seeing a lot of him; at least I hope so. He makes the play work.
The other actors are also terrific. John Middleton, as always, has a hulking intelligence, and he's spot-on as the out-of-control Reverend. Christine Weber uses a larger-than-life presence to excellent effect. As Marie, Joanna Harmon is sweetly muscular, and super-intelligent. Ditto Daniel Jimenez as Derek. It's to Orlando's great credit that he imbues these potentially silly characters with such depth. Cory Hinkle (also a writer in the collective) is the swing actor and he plays his characters with admirable finesse.
The designers – Michael Wangen (lights), Kelsey Glasener (costumes), C. Andrew Mayer (the amazing sound) and, especially, Jeremy Wilhelm (sets) – are working with, obviously, a minimalist budget, but they still manage first rate work. I've never seen the Jones stage used with such variety.
The show only runs two more weekends. It's not a perfectly-plotted play but Dominic Orlando's excellent writing and, especially, Dylan Frederick's acting make it well worthwhile.
Location Info:
The Playwrights' Center
Artist Info: The Workhaus Collective
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