Flip Side - The Water's Always Wetter

 

In creating Flip Side, Ellen Maddow went in an unusual direction- first they asked Anna Kiraly to design a set, then Ellen, assisted by her Smith College actors and "Blue" Gene Tyrrany's musical score, created a play inspired by the physical environment.  The show has gone to Hungary, and now is making its NYC debut.
The play is in three parts:
Part I takes place in Drizzle Plaza, where everyone seems depressed - clothing is drab, music is lethargic... Alan Flynnalyn (John Hellweg) is carrying on an Internet affair with a woman named Sylvia, and his wife Marilyn (Tina Shepard) goes looking for her to kill her. Two old ladies, Celeste and Aurora (Sue Jean Kim and Will Badgett) sit with their dogs in their laps (wonderful puppets by Ralph Lee) and disapprove of things. Two workers, Frank and Daisy (David Brooks and Heidi Schreck) keep themselves busy. No one likes it where they are, but no one seems to want to change in constructive ways. Some of them are peering over a wall at The Other Side, where people seem to be happier.
Then in Part II, we're introduced to that other side- The Waterfall family. Everyone's in bright shiny mismatched clothes, everything's speed speed speed. Oscar Waterfall (Badgett) is the patriarch, who enjoys showering with tree branches, Sylvia, his wife (Shepard) doesn't realize the harmless Internet flirtation she's keeping up with Alan from the other side has caused his wife to come looking for her, Lucinda (Schreck), who is doing an anthropological study of the people on the other side, the teenage daughter Cherimoya (Lee) who is as aggravated as any adolescent, and obsessed with Frank, who she's seen on the other side. And the vile next-door neighbor, Mrs. Wormser (Brooks), who likes nothing more than to complain.
In Part III, the boundary begins to blur and characters from each side meet up and interact.
The result is simultaneously beautifully specific and frustratingly vague. Though there are many lovely poetic passages, and the aura, characters, and sense of each place are clearly defined, there's not much story there. It's not quite clear what the boundary between the two worlds actually IS - some people seem to be able to pass right through, others think they can hide and not let the other side know they're there. There's an Internet connection and Alan and Sylvia apparently went to school together (on which side, I don't know); Cherimoya can see Frank, and be seen herself, but not clearly.
The actors all do a fine job. The much-touted set is interesting: boxes covered in fabric on which can be projected pictures- sometimes it opens and pieces slide and fit together.
It's a visually fascinating, but inconclusive piece: the moral I drew is the classic "the grass is always greener", since no one seems quite satisfied with what they have.

Flip Side

The Talking Band

Performances Tues- Sat at 8pm and Sundays at 3. (No performance October 7)

The Connolly Theater
220 East 4th Street

Tickets $20 at 212-868-4444 or SmartTix.com
Special Gala performance Oct 1 at 7:30, tickets $50 - call 212-925-0371 for more info.

Photo Credit: Darien Bates: Sue Jean Kim, Tina Shepard and Will Badgett

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