Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: St. Louis

The Amish Project
Mustard Seed Theatre

Also see Richard's review of Wild Oats


Amy Loui
I think we're safe, for the moment.

Experts say we're averaging a mass shooting every six weeks now, in America. And the last one was on the last Wednesday of August. So we should be okay for now, right?

Not surprisingly, theater is there with a fascinating take on the problem. And The Amish Project, with Amy Loui in a wide variety of roles on stage, is as staggering as it is magical.

You'd think a play about a real-life mass shooting would be clunky and clumsy and just plain awful to relive. And yet it's beautifully articulated, with one woman switching identities, sometimes as many as three or four times in a single, unbroken twelve-foot walk across stage. But by the time that happens, each of the Amish (and the nearby "normal" people) have become so distinct that you just know which character she's slipped into, stepping in and out of shadows, right away—simply by virtue of a single hand movement or facial expression for each. Or by the creepy, creepy voice of a killer.

Then, there's this long, long period of suspended transcendence, in the final 15 minutes or so, when you think it could easily just end right there, but keeps on being transcendent, well beyond our expectations. And by the end of it all, you realize that we now live in an age when evil is truly banal, and forgiveness locked away, till it has ossified into some bizarre, remote, and mystical thing, trapped in an imaginary Ark of the Covenant we each carry aloft, through a desert of despair. We see this on stage in the scowl of a cable news junkie who proudly bullies one of the stunned survivors.

After the killings, a carriage full of Amish show up at the shooter's home to console his new widow. But in the mind-blowing conclusion of The Amish Project, it is an earth-shattering event, as shocking as the crime itself—mercy, so strange in "normal" people's lives, that they simply don't know how to react to it any more.

It's a complex story from 2008 (based on the Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, shootings of 2006) that closes up like a web around us, thanks to playwright Jessica Dickey. And in it, actress Amy Loui and producer/director Deanna Jent achieve the impossible—creating fully dimensional characters: an exuberant little girl; a grieving, drained widow; and a sly pedophile, among others.

The little girl takes a bit of getting used to in the opening minutes, but by the end we are transfixed by her luminescence—and readily accept that the same actress can also loiter in the shadow off to one side, smoking and chatting about how the killer came to be, accompanied by a subtle but overwhelming sound effect of the suffocating roar of a hell-bound train.

Beautiful, harrowing; unbearable and glorious.

Through September 13, 2015, at the Fine Arts Theatre at the south end of Fontbonne University, 6800 Big Bend Blvd. For more information visit www.mustardseedtheatre.com.

Cast
Amy Loui*: Velda, Carol, Bill, Sherry, America, Eddie

* Denotes member, Actors Equity Association

Designers & Crew
Director: Deanna Jent
Assistant Director: Nancy Lewis
Stage Manager: Kati Donnelly
Assistant Stage Manager: Morgan Fisher
Set Design: Kyra Bishop
Light Design: Michael Sullivan
Costume Design: Jane Sullivan
Sound Design: Zoe Sullivan
Props: Meg Brinkley
Voice and Dialect Coach: Richard Lewis
Sound Board Operator: Traci Clapper
Light Board Operator: Emma Bruntrager
Shop Supervisor: Jon Hisaw
House Manager: Joee Gardiner
Program Cover: Fox Smith


Photo: John Lamb


-- Richard T. Green