Review: DRAGON PLAY at Rorschach Theatre

Dragons are fire-breathing their way back into the culture, from the animated series “How to Train Your Dragon” to the fierce special effect triumphs in “Game of Thrones.” Their images date back thousands of years to ancient Mesopotamia.

But does their presence represent something else, reflecting something deeper in our psyche? Playwright Jenny Connell Davis wonders as well in her “Dragon Play.”

Its delving into deeper emotions of attachments and abandonment -- not to mention its literal playing with fire -- makes it a natural choice for the Rorschach Theatre, where their current home in an unfinished commercial space at an apartment complex in Buzzards’ Point, blank canvas that allows them to do a lot of things, from drawing magical protective circles in chalk on the concrete floor, to hosting a port-show fire pit outside in which patrons are invited to write down on paper and toss in “ a memory, a name, a story that no longer serves you.” 

Indoors, Sarah Beth Hall has designed a marvelous set of concentric swirls of white fabric above, big mountains of white paper snow mountains surrounding the stage that’s in the round. Sound designer Madeline "Mo" Oslejsek matches her in devising a surround sound for the audience through a set of speakers that circle them from behind.

The play itself consists of two overlapping stories that take place on the same space, somewhat confusingly.

One involves a housebound woman who resents her current life in the drifting snows of the northern plains, but despises worse the man who left her years before with a child. When the wayward lover (Jalen Wilson-Nelem) suddenly returns, it causes a bit of a rift. Instead of a circle, there’s more of a triangle with the woman, well-played by Erin Denman, opposite her solid but unexciting husband (Erik Harrison).

That the two are identified only as Man and Woman either means they are meant to be archetypes or that Davis couldn’t come up with good names for them. Wilson-Nelem (spoiler alert) is listed as “Dragon,” but plays him not so much fiery as smarmy. 

Amid this conflict there is the separate story of a boy (Ben Ribler) who stumbles upon an injured Dragon Girl (Bri Houtman) as a child, only to find her again as a teen when, once he gets over his resentment that she left him, tries to get with her sexually. 

Houtman is so convinced she’s a cheery dragon, perched on the refrigerator, she convinces us as well. All this even though she seems more dressed like a pirate (costumes by Jessica Utz). When she finally gets her pair of wings, they’re unconvincing paper things,  but already the play has shown us dragons don’t need  wings or special effects to make them come alive. 

“Dragon Play” starts effectively, with Denman telling her character’s tale illuminated only by a wooden match or two, getting her speech out before she burns her fingers. 

Fight and intimacy choreographer Lorraine Ressegger-Slone is busy, since there is a lot of both. And while the flying of any dragons is not so convincing, the gestures of the circles and drawings on concrete surfaces adds an immediacy to the big swings.

The intent seems to be by framing everything as an absurdist situation meant to inform us of our human condition, as in the best of Beckett or Albee. And that’s a reach. 

Nevertheless, the actors give their all in this production directed by Randy Baker. So there would be no reason to just flip it into the burn pit. 

Running time: 80 minutes, no intermission.

Photo credit: Erin Denman and Jalen Wilson-Nelem in “Dragon Play.” Photo by DJ Corey Photography.