Review: MUD at Thinking Cap Theatre

The stage lights were already up when the audience filed into the theatre. A woman sat reading at an old table. There was an ironing board beside her and a couple of worn tires in a shopping cart across the room. She was still. And then, in slow motion she rose, picked up the iron from the board and pressed a pair of trousers. She pressed and pressed again and sometimes looked up and in her eyes you could see the desperation, the frustration and eventually the determination. She looked down and her squalid life appeared around her. The dirty white sheets, hanging; rain splashing down behind them. The wooden clothes rack, the tire on the floor, the step ladder, the axe, the rifle in the cart. And the dissonant music scratching out the life no one wanted.

And the play, MUD, began on Thinking Cap Theatre's stage at the Vanguard Sanctuary.

A faultless Gretchen Porro, ironing board Mae, lives with Lloyd, played by Christian Vandepas who disappears into a man who is is wet, sick, filthy, crude and whines his boastful ignorance. They have a friend, Henry, the imposing Alex Alvarez, all bluster and lust, just a facade. They live on a rundown farm. They have a pig.

The three actors prove once again that director Nicole Stodard knows exactly how to pick a play and those who should play it.

Maria Irene Fornes, "unofficially titled Avante Garde Mother of off off Broadway" wrote MUD some thirty years ago. It is a brutally violent piece with the promise of hope. The crudeness of Lloyd's sexual tales and actions, the pathetic frottage of Henry on Mae, merge with Mae's delight at her reading abilities and the gift of a lip stick Perhaps there is an escape from the awful existence of ignorance and dirt. Or not.

In 17 tableau separated scenes, the show runs without intermission for 75 minutes.

Not a happy piece, but MUD is mesmerizing. As is usual with Thinking Cap's productions.

Directed by Nicole Stodard who also designed the costumes and sound. Scenic design by

Alyiece Moretto and lighting by Eric Nelson. Sound editing by Carey Hart.

MUD runs through November 6 at the Vanguard Sanctuary, 1501 South Andrews Avenue, Ft Lauderdale. 954-610-7263 http://www.thinkingcaptheatre.com