Review: Despite Excellent Performances, Theatre Vertigo's CARNIVORA Never Finds Footing

I started to get nervous the moment I walked into the Shoebox Theatre to see Theatre Vertigo's CARNIVORA.

First, there was the playbill, featuring a terrifying set of blood red teeth. And then there was Kaye Blankenship's awesome set -- a clearing in the woods straight out of a horror movie. The entire floor of the theatre, including the seating area along the walls, is packed dirt. You are in the clearing.

Talk about setting the mood! I don't think I was the only one whose pulse quickened when the house lights went down. When the lights came back up and Nathan Dunkin walked into the clearing and deposited a burlap bag containing a person, who then screamed, I started seriously planning my exit strategy.

After that, it calmed down. And while many of the things that happen in CARNIVORA are horrific, the play isn't horror movie scary. Phew!

Unfortunately, it also doesn't have a clear direction.

The person in the bag is a woman named Lorraine (played by Stephanie Cordell), who has lost her children, along with her memory of what happened. She is soon set upon by "carnivora" -- a bobcat (R. David Wylie) and a coyote (Holly Wigmore), who want to eat her or sniff her or maybe just cuddle with her. They are pulled away by the woodwoman (Clara-Liis Hillier), who is a mother figure of sorts. Only by drinking the woodwoman's milk can Lorraine regain her memory and fulfill her destiny (save the world?).

Here's the story. Lorraine and her husband, Hunter (Tom Mounsey), are having a rough time. Hunter is besieged by PTSD and night terrors caused by his time in Iraq, and they are struggling financially. One day, Garland (Nathan Dunkin) comes into town and starts holding religious meetings, during which he convinces Lorraine and Hunter that we're all going to hell in a handbasket because of...and this is where things become unclear.

The problem is "the century." Apparently modern things like social media, egotism, and selfishness have poisoned our children beyond saving. If we let this continue, the carnivora will get loose and eat everybody, so the bad children must be gotten rid of. That's when things get really nasty.

The play ostensibly asks us to rethink our ideas of good and bad, right and wrong. The problem is that it doesn't give us any kind of foothold. In his program notes, playwright and director Matthew B. Zrebski writes: "I do sense there are beasts roaming and hungry....but I'm not sure what or who they are...or how to stop them..." The play suffered from this ambiguity -- the 21st century is too vague an antagonist to be meaningful. In terms of the characters and their actions, I didn't see much good or right -- just bad and wrong. And I'm sure how the resolution presented would have made things better, or any difference at all.

About halfway through the second act, I stopped trying to analyze it and instead mentally reframed Lorraine as a madwoman and the action of the play as her lunatic ravings. That helped.

Despite the play's lack of direction, the performances by everyone were excellent. I can't say enough about Stephanie Cordell, who was onstage for the almost the whole 2 ½ hour show, being thrown around and subjected to all manner of degradation. I hope she goes home every night to find a warm bath and a glass of wine waiting!

As Hunter, the only sympathetic character in the play, Tom Mounsey gave his best performance I've seen. For about the first half hour, I thought the central question of the play might be about the morality of war, given what it does to the people who fight and our society in general. This would have been an interesting angle to explore further.

I also really enjoyed R. David Wylie and Holly Wigmore as the beasts, mainly for the physicality they each brought to their role.

Overall, though Theatre Vertigo remains one of my favorite companies for pushing the envelope with their productions, I had a hard time getting into this one.

CARNIVORA plays through February 19. Details and tickets here.

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