Review: ORANGE FLOWER WATER at 100 Lives Repertory
This unflinching portrait of desire and its wreckage runs through October 12.
As the lights dimmed at the end of ORANGE FLOWER WATER, the debut production of 100 Lives Repertory, a deafening silence settled over the audience, as if we were collectively deciding whether to clap or let out a primal scream. It was one of the most visceral theatrical experiences I've had in years, and catharsis wasn't optional — it was necessary. (We clapped. I screamed later.)
Craig Wright's play centers on two couples in a small town: David and Cathy, Brad and Beth. Their kids play on the same soccer team. They exchange pleasantries at games. And none of them should have gotten married. But they did. Now David and Beth are having an affair, and at least four lives are about to detonate.
The production unfolds in a series of two-person scenes punctuated by searing monologues. These aren't just intimate moments — they're the kind you’d instinctively look away from in real life, the moments when the decent thing would be to give people privacy. But here, in a theatre seating maybe 35, these implosions happen less than ten feet away. All four actors remain onstage throughout, even when not in a scene, creating an inescapable pressure cooker where every wound radiates outward. No one's getting out unscathed — not the characters, not the audience.
A production this raw lives or dies on its cast, and directors Annie Kehoe and Blaine Palmer have assembled an extraordinary ensemble. Brooke Totman, as Beth, doesn't just convey her character's moral wrestling with infidelity — she makes visceral Beth's struggle to be seen as something more than an ignorant child by men who've already decided who she is. Alex Lathrop's David is smooth-talking charm incarnate, which makes him all the more dangerous. Todd Robinson's Brad is an explosion waiting to happen. He owns his cruelty with casual honesty ("Everybody knows I'm a prick...it's just who I am"), but there's a simmering threat of real violence beneath the bravado, which is particularly terrifying in such a small space. Briana Ratterman, as Cathy, has the fewest lines but delivers perhaps the most devastating performance: her scene where grief collides with rage collides with desire is more raw than anything I've witnessed onstage.
ORANGE FLOWER WATER offers an unflinching examination of relationships coming apart at the seams. It's brutal. And brilliant. If you go to theatre to feel something — really feel it — don't miss this production.
Photo credit: Cat Plein
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