Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: Philadelphia

Annapurna
Theatre Exile


Catharine K. Slusar and Pearce Bunting
Annapurna is a play that mixes dark comedy with touching drama. Sharr White's play sometimes seems too carefully calculated, but it ends up being a poignant portrait of two people who can never get out of each other's life no matter how hard they try. And director Joe Canuso's vivid production for Theatre Exile makes its often harsh characters enormously appealing.

As the play opens, Emma (Catharine K. Slusar) shows up in at the ratty Colorado trailer park home of her ex-husband Ulysses (Pearce Bunting). They haven't spoken in twenty years, ever since Emma fled in the middle of the night, taking their five-year-old son with her. Ulysses certainly wasn't expecting company: he's naked except for a tiny, ratty apron around his waist and a portable oxygen tank strapped to his back. Ulysses lives in isolation in this run-down town—"the ass-crack of the Rockies," as he calls it—and has turned his back on a successful life as a poet as he waits to die from emphysema. His phone may be out of order, his home may be crawling with insects, and the food he prepares may be rancid meat he purchased at the dollar store, but he doesn't care—and he doesn't care what anyone thinks of him, either. The no-nonsense Emma, with the help of their unseen (and now grown) son, has tracked down Ulysses. But why? Why has Emma's second marriage now collapsed? Why does she have scars all over her arms and back? And what really happened on the night Emma disappeared twenty years ago? (And while we're at it, what does the play's title mean?)

These are all intriguing questions, but White takes his time answering them. The question of what happened on that long-ago night—a night that Ulysses doesn't remember—is raised several times then dismissed; it's obvious early on that the truth will finally be revealed in the last five minutes of this 90-minute play. That seems to be one of White's favorite dramatic techniques: throughout Annapurna, we learn about a mystery in the characters' pasts then wait and wait for the mystery to be explained. It's suspenseful, but it's also irritatingly repetitive. Coupled with the playwright's careful balancing of tenderness, sarcasm and gross-out humor, it sometimes makes the play seem too contrived, more schematic than dramatic. But Ulysses and Emma are rich, multi-layered characters, full of bravado and vulnerability, and the way their aggravation with each other softens into reluctant affection makes Annapurna a transfixing experience. And in the way that Emma acknowledges her responsibility for what went wrong, the playwright refreshingly avoids taking the easy way out dramatically. Emma is not simply a mistreated woman dealing with a malevolent man; these two are inextricably, and eternally, enmeshed.

Ulysses is a deliciously over-the-top comic character, and Bunting does a sensational job bringing him to life. With his unkempt hair, raspy voice and cockeyed grin, he gives a great portrayal of a man whose excesses have finally caught up with him even as he remains determined to live life on his own terms. It's such an outlandish performance that it threatens to overpower his co-star. But Slusar has never been an actress who can be overshadowed by anyone, and she rises to the challenge here. With her fiercely determined expression and thrust jaw, Slusar makes Emma a model of steely resolve. After one of Bunting's characteristic outbursts, she stares him down and, in a level, even voice, says "Don't... you... shout... at... me." The words "or else" are not necessary. Under Canuso's sensitive direction, the undercurrents are as important as the dialogue; we're always clear that these two characters mean much more to each other than they can ever say.

Thom Weaver created Ulysses' portable palace, a finely detailed yet convincingly dilapidated trailer—right down to the tires stuck in the mud. It's the perfect setting for this flawed yet endearingly quirky and moving play.

Annapurna runs through May 11, 2014, and is presented by Theatre Exile at Studio X, 1340 South 13th Street, Philadelphia. Tickets are $20 - $50, with $10 Student Rush tickets available, and may be purchased by calling the box office at 215-218-4022 or online at www.TheatreExile.org.


Photo: Paola Nogueras


-- Tim Dunleavy