How We May Know Him

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Paragon Theatre commissioned Ellen Graham to write a play two years ago.

Paragon Theatre Company’s production of How We May Know Him.

The world premiere for her How We May Know Him opened last weekend at The Phoenix Theatre.

Classified as an absurd comedy with a rapturous soul, How We May Know Him features a stunning set designed by Kevin Bautch, an outstanding cast of talented actors, but its rhyme and reason fails to translate across the boards.

Immediately after Act I blank stares followed hopeful smiles that everything would come together during Act II.

It didn’t.

Set in a gated community in the “high plains American West,” the stage is divided into three main areas, with secondary action taking place between and around the three main points of interest. In Center stage, sit two beach chairs facing away from the audience, indicating the pool lay just beyond and out of sight. Stage left and stage right feature two units of the gated community.

In a series of short scenes, some lasting only a few seconds, the play flips back and forth between the three areas, momentarily visiting other places. According to the director’s notes, the four main characters represent Reason, Innocence, Chaos, and Disillusionment. The play wants to address itself toward the desire of humanity wanting and searching for ways and means to transcend beyond what they understand their person to be.

Only one of the four comes close to representing Innocence, and that’s colored with a strong naivety up until the last several seconds when she is flooded with Disillusionment. No one demonstrates Reason with any logical sense of direction. Without logic, there is no reason. Three fall into Chaos and Disillusionment, perhaps with a tad of naive Innocence.

Direction by Wendy Franz comes across clear and sharp. Stunningly the cast does an amazing job of character development, considering the play doesn’t appear to go anywhere, at least very far, and doesn’t accomplish anything of great significance.

Act I drags not only because of disconnection between the scenes, but also for the long black outs between scenes. Some scenes last only a few seconds, and the black outs stretch way beyond an acceptable time, causing one to wonder if something disastrous happened back stage. Nothing disastrous took place; the long black out’s determined on purpose for some unexplained reason emphasized audience murmurs.

Barbra Andrews plays Wren, appearing initially in the dark, waiting for her partner, Nicola (Susanne Favette) to return home after a six-month tour of duty in a war zone. Not wanting the neighbors to know Nicola returned, Wren gives her detailed instructions how to get in through a back window. Tension fills the kitchen immediately between the two. Nicola won’t or can’t explain where she has been and what she has been doing. It isn’t clear whether she was on a secret mission, can’t talk about what she saw from an emotional stand point, or prefers playing games. On a staccato bent, Wren plays her own games, having burned Nicola’s clothes. She says she wasn’t sure Nicola would return, but it isnŐt clear if she really believed that or hoped Nicola wouldn’t return. Not unusual for a relationship to be strained by a six-month separation because of changes both parties have experienced. The strain with these two stands tall wallowing in its own confidence.

Favette feeds Nicola with understandable frustration first having to climb in through a window in the dark, and second over Wren’s staccato strange behavior. Throughout the play Nicola flirts with confusion, a touch of bitterness filtered through humorous sarcastic barbs wrapped in a tight shield of protection. Fayette’s portrait of Nicola blares with bright primary colors.

Andrew’s portrayal of Wren clearly defines a woman tossed in confused naive belief in an undefined religious concept, unable to think for herself, willing to do what she is told without understanding, and fearful of revealing what she thinks she now knows. Confidence escapes her vocabulary, emotional structure, and psyche except when she attempts to give away a book on the street to strangers. Then it isn’t clear whether she embodies confidence or forcing herself to do something someone has instructed her to do. Andrews does an amazing job reflecting all of Wren’s characteristics.

Wearing a long black shapeless dress, Emily Payton Davies assumes the role of Val, an ultimate religious fanatic, although it is never exactly clear what she is fanatical about except changing lives. She talks about “Us” and “We,” but the us and we are never defined. Living under Simone’s (Gina Wencel) porch, depending upon secret late night feedings from Wren, and driving Simone to distraction, Val attempts to give the impression she is some sort of spiritual being who has been around for thousands of years, and has even written a book, claiming every word is true. Davies is wonderful in her stoic approach and silly grin attempting to project a confident peaceful spirit. What she does, however, is give the audience a reason to laugh.

Simone wears the pretense of a snob, a TV personality obsessed with her body, striving for perfection that can never be obtained because her chaotic dissatisfaction smacks the face of reason frequently flying off the handle in frustration. At the pool, however, her false snobbishness bites at the heels of Nicola in the pretense no one is as good as she is. She’s important. She’s class. She’s absorbed with herself.

Depending upon food from Wren, Val shows dissatisfaction with the food Wren brings. She doesn’t eat meat because animals shouldn’t eat animals. Cheese is processed and crackers have something that isn’t good for the body.

Davies’s character is deliciously detailed in its broad-brushed portrayal, reminding of a stray animal taking refuge under the front porch, claiming a sofa as its own wearing a Cheshire silly grin. The more it is yelled at to get off, the longer it stays, frustrating, but not to be taken all that seriously. Projecting the impression she has attained some sort of spiritual plain of perfectionism; the aura of peace she wants to portray grabs the needy with a charismatic hook, but the needy never has the wherewithal to ask the right questions.

Wencel plays Simone with over exaggerated humorous hysteria dissatisfied with everything, her nose, her face, her body, and including everyone around her, making her all too easy to be laughed at instead of with. With her consistent character drenched in hysterical flaws, Wencel is great fun with the humorous character she wraps herself into.

Conflict between Nicola and Wren grows with stinging arguments coming to a climax when Nicola discovers Val’s charismatic pull on Wren. Wren cuts off her finger claiming she has really changed. Changed from what to what isn’t clear. Changed from a human being to a starfish believing her finger will grow back? Believing her hands have more power with four fingers instead of five? It not only demonstrates the power Val gleans over Wren, but also that Wren isn’t shrouded in too many smarts allowing herself to be owned by such an illogical superficial being.

As a playwright, Graham hopes her absurd comedy will create questions within the audience concerning “assumptions about us, our lovers, our neighbors.” The only question it raises, however is why? There are some intriguing funny one-liners. Val’s question “what does a hot dog eat” will forever tickle my funny bone, although has nothing to do with anything.

If Graham’s intentions were to poke into values, the absurdity of religious fanatics, the gullibility of people buying into charismatic power filled with fluff, fragilic relationships that need nurture rather than games, honesty rather than deceptive games, the importance of knowing one’s own self with the ability to guard against every appealing whim that comes with the obsession of imperfect bodies, the script doesn’t go far enough defining the issues, much less tying everything together. The issues are present, but whatever tied them together unraveled before they crossed the boards into the audience.

The outstanding cast is completed with Laura Norman and Chris Bleau playing a variety of different characters. Both Norman and Bleau handle their short character descriptive scenes with careful construction, although it isn’t always clear who their characters are or why.

When Val explains to Simone God is a hammer, Simone wants to know what Satan might be, to which Val answers “a crowbar.”

For the majority of the play during the black outs, along with weird music, the sound of a hammer can be heard. Brian Freeland’s genius designed the sound. Halfway through Act II the hammer ceases, the black outs continue. The significance of why the stopping when it did occupies the mind with no explanation except it stopped. Is God as the hammer supposes to be transforming or destroying? Pounding away at transformation and urging transcendence? Does the stopping of the hammering indicate God has finished or has given up? With these four kooky characters, the actors do a superb job at creating them with consistency, and humor, although much of the humor is in spite of them rather then because of them. This defines part of the problem with the script. Unless the issues become universal, unless the audience can identify with the characters enough to care about them, the issues remain on stage with the characters. These characters create their own obsessions, their own confusions, and their own issues making it difficult for anyone to care about them, making it difficult for anyone to want to care about them no matter how well they are portrayed.

Knowing, Graham, Franz and the cast worked long and hard on the play, and the detailed work shows, it appears however, they have managed to keep everything they learned tightly bound within the context of this small group because the rhyme, reason and purpose does not reach beyond the boards.

At the end I didn’t know any more than what I knew before the house lights faded. From the beginning Paragon sealed its reputation for high-quality productions with sets, character development, direction, and content. With How We May Know Him, the company continues to claim three out of the four with the content having no reason, a lot of chaos and disillusionment, and very little innocence.