Review: BLASTED Searches for the Fuse

Director Lindsey Higgins has audio recordings of British and American politicians play before the action begins in the 60 Grit Theatre Company's production of Sarah Kane's "Blasted." Their stuffy proclamations set the stage for the 1995 play's exploration of some horrific clashes along the frontlines of the battle between the personal and the impersonal.

The 80 minute play takes place in a hotel room in which tabloid journalist Ian hopes to rekindle his relationship with Cate, a former lover who's come to him out of concern for his well-being. Ian, played by noted local Shakespearean actor James Noel Hoban, is a rough sort who traffics in racism and homophobia when not crudely trying to put the make on the younger Cate, played by Heather Elizabeth Irish. Their relationship mixes cruelty with brief touches of nostalgia for a lost affection ("You make me feel safe," says Ian to Cate), sometimes confusing the two.

Having directed works by Martin McDonagh and Harold Pinter, Higgins knows the edgy territory here and has her actors locked into hermetic worlds, based on physical and psychological weaknesses, that erupt in some crackling staccato outbursts of anger at critical moments. Their fractured identities sometimes reduce them to animalistic acts of aggression which, they soon find out, are mirrored in the world at large.

Their respective retreats into themselves are cut short by the arrival of war, in the person of a soldier who bursts into the room to recount and reenact some of the atrocities he has experienced. Nick Wakely gives a wild-eyed menace to this character who seeks to intellectually and physically disabuse Ian of any faith in humanity he might still possess, yet he also wants Ian to keep him company.

Hoban was strong in the performance under review, allowing Ian's vulnerability to clearly show through his paranoia and destructiveness. The slightly built Irish balanced her Cate's inner short-circuits with courage against the too real menace of Ian. Her outbursts of near demented laughter were striking. Wakely, as well, conveyed that quality of being both scary and scared as he and the others seemed trapped in the ambiguities and ambivalences of their situation.

A series of Beckett-ian half-burials and blackout-divided tableaux mark the close of what has been a descent into a hell which the author seems to faintly hope, with more individual, political and media responsibilty, might be avoided.

Lighting design by Michaela Denoncourt and sound design by Chris Fitz helped to immerse the close-to-the-action audience at Portland Stage's studio theater in the sometimes excruciating dramatic moment.

Though the too-short run of this compelling production will likely be close to over by the time this review appears, its seems important to hope that such powerful drama still matters and that this intrepid new theater company will carry on.

Photo by Debbie Daniele at JustSimplyPhotography.