Review: TOO LITTLE TOO LATE IN LYRIC'S 'WATER BY THE SPOONFUL'

Written by Quiara Alegria Hudes; directed by Scott Edmiston; scenic design, Richard Wadsworth Chambers; costume design, Elisabetta Polito; lighting design, Karen Perlow; sound design/composer, Dewey Dellay; video design, Amelia Gossett; fight choreographer, Omar Robinson; production stage manager, Julianne Menassian; assistant stage manager, Samantha Setayesh

Cast:
Gabriel Rodriguez as Elliot Ortiz; Sasha Castroverde as Yazmin Ortiz; Mariela Lopez-Ponce as Haikumom, aka Odessa; Gabriel Kuttner as Fountainhead, aka John; Johnny Lee Davenport as Chutes&Ladders; Theresa Nguyen as Orangutan; Zaven Ovian as A Ghost/Professor Aman/Policeman

Performances and Tickets:
Now through November 16, Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, Mass.; tickets $25-$61, $10 off for seniors, $10 student rush, available at the Box Office by calling 617-585-5678 or online at www.lyricstage.com.

Water is a potent metaphor in Quiara Alegria Hudes' Pulitzer Prize-winning play WATER BY THE SPOONFUL now in its Boston premiere at the Lyric Stage through November 16. But when the physical manifestations of that metaphor evoke more genuine pathos than all of the characters in the play combined, it makes for a long two-plus hours of theater.

The central characters are Elliot Ortiz (Gabriel Rodriguez), a twenty-something wounded warrior home from Iraq, and four lost souls seeking redemption and human connection in an online chat room for recovering drug addicts. At first the relationship between Elliot and the anonymous support group members is unclear, but when Elliot's Mama Ginny, the aunt that raised him, dies, his biological mother Odessa (Mariela Lopez-Ponce) emerges from behind her screen name Haikumom to pay her respects and seek forgiveness.

This estranged mother-son confrontation raises the ghosts of tragedies from the past and sets old resentments into motion. Elliot's guilt over an Iraqi citizen he killed, and his despair at not watering his aunt's garden when she was sick, triggers new and more terrifying PTSD nightmares. Odessa, now sober and able to realize the full impact of her inability to give her young ailing children even the simplest amounts of water needed to avoid dehydration, relapses and almost doesn't recover. Released from the hospital but barely functioning, she is now the one in need of "water by the spoonful." But is Elliot capable of providing it?

The exploration of Elliot and Odessa's similarities and search for redemption would be fuel enough for WATER BY THE SPOONFUL if Hudes were to excavate more deeply the irrevocable primal bonds that connect a family through DNA even when their psychic wounds keep them physically apart. But Hudes muddies the waters, so to speak, giving equal and extraneous time to Haikumom's chat room members. Not that the psychology of anonymous online communication and behavior isn't interesting, especially for people who are isolated and feel powerless outside of the cyber world. But by giving so much weight to the concerns of wealthy coke addict Fountainhead (Gabriel Kuttner), long sober but still frightened black middle-aged loner Chutes&Ladders (Johnny Lee Davenport), and Orangutan (Theresa Nguyen), the impulsive and cynical young Japanese-born American adoptee in search of her cultural identity (and perhaps her biological parents), Hudes waters down the ability for the audience to empathize with anyone.

It doesn't help that a great deal of the staging has actors seated in isolation from one another, facing imaginary screens and typing on imaginary keyboards. Dialog is that of online abbreviations, with vocal emoticons taking the place of real expression. Surely some poetic license could have been taken to have the characters interact more dynamically, as if they were getting lost in their IMs and being drawn into the matrix where they could confront each other face to face.

Instead, performances for the most part are as flat as computer screens. Even Elliot and his nurturing cousin Yazmin (Sasha Castroverde) seem to be narrating instead of being. Only in the last scenes of the play do the actors have an opportunity to really connect, but by then it's too late. Their three-dimensional relationships seem contrived given that they have been acting in two dimensions for most of the performance.

Gabriel Rodriguez as Elliot does manage to convey the storm brewing inside of him through nervous twitches and taut muscles that explode in assaults on an imaginary punching bag. The ever dependable Johnny Lee Davenport is also quite endearing, exuding a quiet dignity as Chutes&Ladders as he painstakingly tries to balance his deep, deep longing for human connection with an almost crippling fear of venturing outside his carefully controlled comfort zone. Gabriel Kuttner has his moments, too, especially when he risks his anonymity as Fountainhead to help the distressed Odessa by coming to her as his real self John.

The real star of WATER BY THE SPOONFUL is, ironically, the water. Thanks to innovative video designs by Amelia Gossett, drops, ripples, showers, and torrents become the compelling images that drive home what's missing in the lives of most of the characters: nurturance in its simplest form. But water offers healing, too, and cleansing, and the hope of redemption. At the play's end, there is a sense that these parched souls can be saved. They have gone through a baptism of sorts, and like Mama Ginny's neglected garden, life can bloom anew if given the smallest amount of care and attention.

PHOTOS BY MARK S. HOWARD: Gabriel Rodriguez as Elliot Ortiz and Sasha Castroverde as Yazmin Ortiz; Mariela Lopez-Ponce as Haikumom aka Odessa, Gabriel Rodriguez, Sasha Castroverde and Gabriel Kuttner as Fountainhead aka John; Theresa Nguyen as Orangutan and Johnny Lee Davenport as Chutes&Ladders; Sasha Castroverde and Gabriel Rodriguez

To post a comment, you must register and login.