The Whale: Plumbing Murky Depths

THE WHALE
Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion
Boston Center for the Arts. SpeakEasy Stage Company
Playwright: Samuel D. Hunter
Director: David R. Gammons
Set, Cristina Todesco; Costumes, Gail Astrid Buckley; Lights, Jeff Adelberg; Sound, David Remedios.

SpeakEasy Stage Company, runs through April 12, 2014
Two acts 70 minutes, 60 minutes, one fifteen minute intermission

Sometimes a play touches all the bases but never reaches home plate for me. The SpeakEasy Stage Company production of "The Whale," playing until April 12 at Roberts Auditorium in the Calderwood Pavilion on Tremont Street is one of those.

I just saw yesterday’s matinee performance of “The Whale." The play featured good acting by some highly regarded Boston actors but the play just didn't move me. I couldn't get a grip on exactly what the playwright (Samuel D. Hunter) or director (David R. Gammons) intended to convey.

My takeaway was that I saw a well-acted play, two young actors who show promise, and a few well-timed funny scenes that lightened the heavy, dark mood of the play. The serious scenes, including ones intended to shed light onto why Charlie (The Whale), played by John Kuntz, got to be the way he was, weren't strung together cohesively enough for me to care deeply about him or the characters around him. I felt sorry for Charlie... but that’s not what I’m looking for in a theater experience.

The mechanics of the play do their part to add value to the show. The set (Cristina Todesco) is a powerful visual image of Charlie's out of control eating disorder and general out of control life...a basement apartment strewn with empty soft drink cans, wrappers from potato chips, candy, takeout containers, pizza cartons, so dense that they rattle around under the feet of Charlie's nurse (Georgia Lyman), the young Mormon missionary who visits for his own need for redemption, Charlie's 17 year-old daughter and finally his ex-wife (Maureen Keiller) who enter his cramped, smelly, trash pit of an apartment.

The soundscape (David Remedios) is a combination of amplified sounds of Charlie’s labored breathing, whale songs/communications, and ominous electronic storm sounding effects all highlighting the loose, “Moby Dick” imagery in a book report written by Charlie’s daughter Ellie when she was in 8th grade and read several times during the play’s two acts. If you're going to hit me over the head with a hammer, give me a good reason to sustain the blow.

The lighting (Jeff Adelberg) and sound effects punctuate each scene deftly. Costume designer Gail Astrid Buckley deserves credit for her outstanding setup for sizing up John Kuntz's Charlie (The Whale). Watching Kuntz's Charlie pull his 500-pound plus character up from his couch to walk to the bathroom is testament to the character's condition being trapped in his own voluminous body and Kuntz’s extraordinary ability to show it in wrenching, lurching movements.

Two of the most scarred characters are Charlie's teenage daughter Ellie played with snarky ferocity by Josephine Elwood and 19 year-old "Elder Thomas", a tormented Mormon with wounded ideals played by Ryan O'Connor. Elwood and O’Connor, remember those names.

Charlie, isolated in rural Idaho, has been making a living for the past 17 years as a college instructor for an online writing course (no cameras involved). I could not figure out how un-closeted Charlie's repeated beseeching to his students to write their essays with honesty fit into the grand scheme of things - obesity, religion, homosexuality - nor how the awkwardly explained, mysterious, slow death of his lover from malnutrition was connected to Charlie's apparent desire to eat himself to death.

The play got a boffo review from the Boston Globe so I’m wondering what I missed. If you see the show, I’d love to hear your take.

Photo by Craig Bailey

Comments

[Ann Baker]

Great opening line…pt.

[Ann Baker]

I think this is one of the most honest reviews a reviewer could submit. This, is my humble opinion is what a review should be. You credit the mechanics/ art and actors and you state clearly this was not your cup of tea because you and the play/story did not resonate. Nothing wrong with that. In fact I think it brings people to the theater,because they will identify with your likes and dislikes. Very helpful.