Review: STAMP OF HOPE at The Lantern Theatre in Conway

Article by Chloe Showalter

The Lantern’s premiere of playwright and director Shua Miller’s Stamp of Hope, stage managed and co-directed by Vera Proctor, ran August 7-9 in Conway. The show highlighted how we can find true hope in the face of deceit as well as the quotidian drudgery of Hell.

By limiting most of the plot’s action to a bleak office space complete with a child-sized desk and chairs, the audience focuses on each incremental development between our three characters. The story follows the demon Karl as he plods along, approving the documents delivered to him daily by the human office manager Sheila. Karl longs to confess his infatuation to the ever-icy Sheila, but the most he can work up are fantasies where he imitates Sheila’s voice, pretending to dance
with her in the dim light of his bedroom.

Interrupting Karl’s monotonous life, Sheila introduces him to a new employee—an apparent fallen angel by the name of Alex. The angel brings with him an ingrained hatred of demons as well as a secret mission to recover the approval form that would jumpstart Armageddon, returning to Heaven with the help of his mystical garage opener.

As the simple, clueless Karl, Paul Bowling gives a perfectly animated performance while embodying the Douglas Adams-esque routine of bureaucratic redundancy. His day consists of stamping the forms in his inbox after certifying they have the necessary signatures, and the only bright spot in this Hell is the moment Sheila passes by with her squeaky cart of paperwork. Even though Karl should be the most one-dimensionally evil character as a demon who started WWII, Karl is also the most honest character who lives with his heart on his sleeve. The only manipulation he’s guilty of is whistling Sheila’s favorite song as she passes him in the office, attempting to ingratiate himself to her.

Trent Reese’s bubbly Alex is all smiles on the surface while operating as a double agent to procure the Armageddon processing paperwork no matter the cost. By convincing Sheila to fake interest in Karl, Alex gains Karl’s trust, befriending the demon in an attempt to prevent the world from ending while also developing an actual bond with the small-horned dope. While angels might have a reputation for being goody-two-shoes, Alex has no qualms about lying to ensure his plan’s success, promising Sheila he’ll take her with him to Heaven if she cooperates with his plan despite the fact his ticket back to Heaven is only good for one entity.

Pammi Fabert, as Sheila, serves as the human anchor of the show. While Alex cares about stopping Armageddon, and Karl wishes he could disrupt his dreary existence by romancing Sheila, the center of Sheila’s life is true endless suffering. She died by suicide after her daughter’s death, and she’s tormented by Karl whistling the song she sang to her daughter every night before bed. When Alex dangles the possibility of escape in front of her, she cooperates by feigning interest in Karl but ultimately cannot stomach a false love confession. The audience roots for her liberation, and she ultimately finds freedom to reunite with her daughter in Heaven after an empowering monologue instead of dancing forever with a desperate demon or functioning as a tool for an angel’s machinations.

The Lantern Team designed the stage to evoke the endless torment of Hell with stage lights dimming to darkness for only a moment to then brighten once more as the characters’ lives drag on, unaware as to how much time has actually passed in the endless, banal turmoil of Hell. The mechanical choreography of Sheila’s office cart evokes the institutional machine she’s caught in along with the constant annoyance of the cart’s squeaky wheel, recalling Karl’s comment to Alex That humans can adapt to pain but not to annoyance.

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