Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: Albuquerque/Santa Fe


Regional Reviews

The Other Place: in the mind of a mad woman
Fusion Theatre Company

Also see Dean's review of Jerusalem


Jacqueline Reid, Scott Harrison and Celia Schaefer
By most measures, The Other Place, now in production for the Fusion Theatre Company at the Cell Theater, is a slight piece of stagecraft. It's really just an extended single act with two scenes, one major actor, three supporting actors, and a nearly bare stage with only half a dozen pieces of small furniture. Nor are there high suspense, scintillating dialogue, profound insights or eloquent prose to enliven the evening.

But there is something about the play that is unusual and serves as its saving grace: It is a story told from inside the mind of what you slowly come to understand is a madwoman. The depth of the dementia of Juliana (Jacqueline Reid) only gradually emerges through the hour and a half drama, but even when she is at her soberest, most briskly balanced, businesslike and coherent, the protagonist is a piece of totally subjective art. We see her perceptions and misperceptions as if they were reality, no matter how distant from fact they would seem to an objective observer. It is the tension between the subjective and the objective, the perceived and the real, that gives the play deceptive depth.

Juliana is truly in "the other place," a term that also emerges as a description of her grandfather's old house on Cape Cod where the protagonist spent time as a child and where the greatest trauma of her life unfolded. A doctor in her early fifties who has turned to delivering speeches pitching a new drug, Juliana is the only fully realized character in the play. In the opening minutes we learn that she has brain cancer, is being divorced by her husband, and is alienated from her daughter and son-in law. Gradually, we discover that everything we—and she—thought was true is mere illusion, for this is a thoroughly delusional woman.

Playing such a woman is a challenge, and Reid, a founder of the Fusion and a regular in its casting and direction, performs convincingly in the complex role. In fact, she turns it into something of a star vehicle. She is on stage throughout the play, and dominates every moment of it. The three supporting actors, Celia Schaeffer, Scott Harrison and Peter Diseth, all do smooth, workmanlike jobs, although playwright Sharr White has not given them a lot to work with. Perhaps the trickiest part is the disjointed time sequence that moves back and forth through the years with only an occasional cue signaling when and where the action is occurring. Director Shepherd Sobel, however, has ably handled those potentially confusing temporal shifts.

The production, which is having its Southwest premiere only a year after opening on Broadway, continues at the Cell on Thursday-Sunday through February 23 and then at the Lensic in Santa Fe on March 7-8. For tickets and information call 766-9412 or go to fusionabq.org.


Photo: Wes Naman

--Wally Gordon