Review: REEL TO REEL at Rogue Machine At Matrix Theatre

Reel to Reel is the Los Angeles premiere of an exquisitely evocative new play at Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre on Melrose through August 23rd.  This is a boldly original, must-see treasure, a Rogue Machine co-production with HorseChart Theatre.

Reel to Reel is a stunning anatomy of sound.  In a talkback after the play, playwright John Kolvenbach explains Reel to Reel as an investigation of the truism that you can never truly know another person’s marriage.  Through an aural scrapbook, Reel To Reel tells the nonsequential story of the half century relationship between two bohemian artists with midwest roots in New York City, Maggie and Walter.  We glimpse this couple meeting in their twenties, fighting in their forties, and finally in their golden years, shortly before one of them dies.

Lead character Maggie Spoon is a performance artist who records random, meaningful sounds from her life: a washing machine; the sound of a horrific dinner disaster being reluctantly but diplomatically consumed; her parents escaping to their bedroom at the end of a long day, showing their love in polite midwest small talk before dissolving into each other’s arms.  Reel to Reel is about the mystery of everyday life, how life’s shape and meaning is hidden in almost imperceptible, small, fleeting moments.  Is the texture of a shared life best captured by the breathtaking specificity of one particular noise?  What makes this performance particularly striking is that the actors use foley techniques to create all the sounds themselves, so that watching Reel to Reel is like being immersed in a beautiful, living, unexpected sound quilt tapestry.

Reel to Reel feels like a revelation in how personal and real and specific it is, like eavesdropping on someone’s most uncensored moments in building a life with another human being.  Recently widowed actress Alley Mills Bean delivers a spectacular performance, understated and fiercely intimate, with bone-deep truthfulness on the nature of love and loss, as golden years Maggie.  It does not seem like acting, just being.  She has great chemistry with the stirringly brilliant Jim Ortlieb as golden years Walter, whose final scene absolutely devastated me.  Jim Ortlieb’s unbearably touching performance in the last few minutes of the play is an absolute master class.

The scenes of Walter and Maggie in their later years are unpredictably sublime.  Yet there are moments where Reel to Reel fails to deliver the same honesty in scenes with younger Walter and Maggie, played by Brett Aune and Samantha Klein.  A real life couple of 16 years, actors Brett Aune and Samantha Klein sometimes evidence a puzzling lack of palpable chemistry.  When we flash back to Walter and Maggie in their twenties, Reel to Reel is peculiarly charmless.  The meet cute between young Walter and Maggie feels contrived, with Maggie delivering John Kolvenbach monologues I cannot imagine any woman actually uttering.  This is not helped by the fact that the actors portraying the twentysomething young couple are deep in the groove of middle age, the kind of people who tend to show up at parties with mortgages, not beer kegs.  Brett Aune’s chief characteristic as twentysomething Walter is that he seems devoid of discernible personality.  As twentysomething Maggie, Samantha Klein frantically tries to channel Zoey Deschanel circa 500 Days of Summer.  Instead she lands at something closer to the sad dethroned Zoey Deschanel of our era, reigning Fairy Hotel Mother of Choice Hotels. I wonder if it would not be more interesting to explore younger Maggie’s lines as neurodiverse and awkwardly truthful, rather than fumbling to resurrect the eccentric indie darling girls of Sundance past.

Brett Aune and Samantha Klein do bring considerable talent, vibrancy, bite and humor to portraying the Maggie and Walter in their contentious forties.  The frustration, ego wounds, resentment, gnawing self doubt, and envy of two artists struggling to make their mark in almost impossible professions feels painfully real, their intense fights alternately bitter, hateful, loving and hilarious.

There is immaculate, lovely work in so many details of Reel to Reel, with powerfully sensitive direction from Matt McCray and impeccable craftsmanship. The stage design Evan Bartoletti is exquisite, naturalistic, simple, yet highly inventive in its use of background, foreground, and semi-opaque screens.  There is genius sound and foley from Jeff Gardner, gorgeous prop and foley prop work from Nicole Bernardini, and subtle, richly emotive lighting design from Azra King-Abadi.

After being dormant for some time, HorseChart Theatre’s revival of Psycho Beach Party last summer was the debut re-entrance of this award-winning theatre company.  Psycho Beach Party was one of last summer’s most sumptuous and surprising delights, and I deeply savored every unhinged second of it.  Reel to Reel is yet another triumph for HorseChart Theatre and Rogue Machine.

Photos by Jeff Lorch