Review: ONE FLEA SPARE at Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company

ONE FLEA SPARE is a play with a deceptively simple premise, but one that becomes almost overwhelmingly complex as secrets are revealed, motivations get murky and time takes its toll on people. Mr. and Mrs. Snelgrave are upper class Londoners during the plague. As they're quarantined in their home, they acquire two additional people who are then forced to stay in the Snelgrave home to avoid spreading the disease. Morse, a young girl, and Bunce, a retired sailor shake up the staid Snelgrave dynamic and as the four of them are forced to remain in close quarters, class distinctions break down and skeletons come out of the closet. This is a very spare production, set in a black box theatre in the round, but one that is made incredibly compelling through exceptional performances and tight, complex writing. What few props and costumes there are become larger than life and perfectly communicate the heightened and somewhat frantic circumstances the characters find themselves in. By stripping away all the distractions, the performances create an intimacy with the audience that is electric.

Dialogue is the major star of this production, but excellent actors can elevate even the most thoughtfully written words to otherworldly places. Gordon Joseph Weiss and Concetta Tomei are perfect as Mr. & Mrs. Snelgrave. Both actors embody a patrician elegance that comes across in every movement, but as their facades begin to crumble it's impossible to look away or predict what will happen next. Tomei brings a grace and elegance to Mrs.Snelgrave, but also a hint of damage forced way below the surface. There is a real danger of her character seeming either whiny or manipulative, but she never even suggests that her performance will go there. Her stoicism in the face of the frustrations she's dealt with is heartbreaking.

Weiss's Mr. Snelgrave is a man very assured of his place in the world, who at first seems somewhat stereotypical, but eventually his underlying cruelty begins to seep out. His performance is remarkably restrained, even when he's baiting and toying with the other characters, which makes him all the more sinister. When things don't go his way, his first solution is to throw money at the problem, and when that isn't an option, his panic is palpable. Weiss manages to capture all of these emotions in a way that is convincing and even though he's a loathsome man, completely compelling.

One the other end of the economic spectrum, we have Morse, a young girl of dubious pedigree played by Remy Zaken and Bunce played by Joseph W. Rodriguez, a retired sailor. While the Snelgraves are, at least superficially, easy to figure out, Bunce and Morse remain mysterious throughout the entire production. Zaken plays Morse as a street smart girl with a cruel streak. She could either be a spoiled rich brat, or an urchin used to fighting for scraps. The ambiguity in her performance and the fact that she serves as our unreliable narrator makes this work all the more unsettling. She could be telling the truth, or lying to us, or doing some combination of the two, but it's never quite clear. It's impressive that Zaken manages to inject so much uncertainty into a character who speaks frequently in declarative sentences and seems to often speak without thinking.

Bunce's back-and-forth with Mr. Snelgrave perfectly reveals volumes about the two characters without beating the audience over the head with it. The subtlety of the writing is completely satisfying, and the stage directions so perfectly deliberate that no move is wasted. In contrast, Bunce's scenes with Mrs. Snelgrave shift from hyper masculine one upmanship to genuine vulnerability. Rodriguez, like all of the cast, manages these extremes with grace and believability. Unfortunately, his performance does get bogged down in certain places, which tends to slow down the momentum. Most of his scenes with Mrs. Snelgrave crackle and pop with tension, but occasionally his monologues meander a bit and lose focus.

The costuming and props, minimal as they are, work incredibly well with the spare black box set. Mr Snelgrave's bright jacket and shiny shoes take on an almost otherworldly sheen, especially when contrasted with Bunce and Morse's dour rags.

One Flea Spare is a play with layers upon layers that needs a good director's steady hand and a talented cast to restrain their performances enough to really let the dialogue resonate with the audience. This is a story the will stick with the viewer long after experiencing it, and it is a real treat so see this material handled so skillfully by this talented cast.

ONE FLEA SPARE -- Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company presents the 20th anniversary production of "One Flea Spare" by Naomi Wallace October 14 to November 13, 2016, directed by Caitlin Wallace. Tickets available at sheencenter.org/shows/one-flea-spare/

L-R: Concetta Tomei, Remy Zaken, Gordon Joseph Weiss. Photo by Monica Simoes.