Show: “Alias Grace”
Company: Rivendell Theatre Ensemble
Venue: Rivendell Theatre Ensemble (5779 N Ridge Ave)
Memory is unreliable, yet the lives of women and men often depend on certain events being recounted in a certain way. This is true for Grace Marks, the 1800s historical figure and convicted mudereress now sweeping across the Rivendell stage in Jen Blackmer’s adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel “Alias Grace.” Grace is a meek and mousy woman, so it is hard for most to believe she is guilty of killing her former employer and his housemaid. The dissonance between the cruelty of her crime and her behavior in prison provides a couple hours’ pondering, though the audience ends up as clueless at the end of the play as they were at the start.
Dr. Simon Jordan (Steve Haggard) plans to use the study of psychology to enter into Grace’s mind, and reveal her innermost truth. He is an ambitious young doctor, and largely wins a daily appointment to speak with the imprisoned Grace (Ashley Neal) because Rachel (Jane Baxter Miller), the warden’s wife, is fascinated by his work, while also harboring an attraction to him. Grace has been in jail for sixteen years, and now claims to have amnesia. Through her conversations with Jordan, she reveals the secrets of her employer Kinnear (Drew Vidal) and his housemaid-turned-mistress Nancy (Maura Kidwell). Aligning herself with hotheaded stablehand James (David Raymond), Grace never forgets the lesson she learned from a fellow maid and friend, Mary Whitney (Ayssette Muñoz): as servants, they know their superiors, from how they like their food cooked, to how they sleep at night; but the superiors will never know the servants, and that gives them power.
Blackmer is a gifted writer. She makes good use of Atwood’s quilting metaphor throughout her script, paralleling Grace’s story with the construction of a quilt. The playwright is especially fond of slipping in and out of memories, even granting flights of imagination to Jordan, as his dreams blur with the real world, once he comes to develop romantic and possessive feelings towards Grace. I am not sure that these dreamscapes are particularly dramatically thrilling, as they never last long enough for the viewer to question reality. But the confusion still does its work, highlighting that the doctor himself is not well, and just as calculating and controlling as any other person seeking Grace’s confession.
Director Karen Kessler pays special attention to how the women interact with one another physically in this production. From Kidwell to Muñoz to Miller, the women are all much more at ease with one another than with any man. Nancy displays full-fledged drunkeness in front of Grace without fearing judgment. Mary depends on Grace’s strength to protect her from bodily harm. And Rachel dotes on Grace as a mother might her child. It is only in front of men that secrecy shrouds language, and what is being communicated comes out only through subtext. Grace must be careful, for she doesn’t always understand the game she is playing in her household.
Neal is particularly fine switching between the present, beaten down Grace, and the Grace of her teenage years, who enjoys living and working in Kinnear’s household. She sets the audience off-balance as she tells her tale, always indicating there is more to the tale than what she reveals to Dr. Jordan. Haggard comes apart at the seams as the play continues, and while I wondered if his harried demeanor may shut him off from fully hearing Grace’s story, his intensity helps communicate his downfall. Muñoz is a breath of fresh air as the fiery-spirited Mary, and Kidwell does a lot with a look as the officious but concealing Nancy.
Quilts and paintings dominate Elvia Moreno’s set, and Michael Mahlum’s lighting help distinguish memory from dreams, while confounding expectations mid-scene sometimes. Janice Pytel’s costumes are simple yet elegant, highlighting the 1859 setting without making the world appear fusty or formal. And LJ Luthringer makes use of strings and standards to pull us back to the past while planting ominous religious overtones throughout the production.
If memory is unreliable, as Atwood and Blackmer remind us in “Alias Grace,” then what can we learn from an unveiled recollection? Do we know Grace any better once she has told her physician everything, or are we left still in the dark, understanding only how little we understand about how the human mind justifies its own actions?
TEN WORD SUMMARY: A woman commits murder, only gains freedom once she remembers.
DIE RATING: d10 — “Worth Going To”