Most recently they produced the double feature of Somewhere in Between by Ryan Sprague and Deflowering Waldo by Adam Szymkowicz.
The contrast, for those of us who spent the entire evening with Collaborative Stages, was beautiful, and beautifully orchestrated.
We started off our evening with an intimate look at relationships. Blood vs. water. It's blood that brings that characters together and blood that ultimately bonds them.
Greg (Erik Gullberg) and Joshua (Jeffrey A. Wisniewski) are brothers who come together for this first time since their mother has passed away. And also for the first time since Joshua has married Lissa (Ariel Woodiwiss), a conservative Christian. Greg is rebellious, confrontational and a disruptive force in what he sees as false happiness in his brother's home. Lissa wants him out until they are forced to spend a day together, during which all of the secrets come out. Both Joshua and Greg have secrets about their past and the death of their younger brother, and each will tell the story differently. Though these secrets bring Lissa and Gr
eg closer together, Greg acts rashly when he fears it could come between him and his brother.
The stark design by Elise Handelman showed us the structure of a home with no real walls, no real doors, and no real roof. The semblance of a home which, when struck by Michael Megliola's lighting design, proves to be nothing more than a shell. The cast, under the direction of Collaborative Stage's Artistic Director Brian Letchworth, was well up to the challenges of the play, and wide open to the questions posed by it. It was good to see that no one involved was afraid of the insecurity posed by the play's grisly end, nor to embrace that which is grisly in all relationships.
Ariel Woodiwiss and Erik Gullberg
After this rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows, they brought us into the life of Waldo (Jordan Levin), an agoraphobic, misanthropic, manic-depressive virgin who--at 24--is still afraid of the monster under his bed. If Somewhere In Between was a rollercoaster of emotions which rang true for its audience, Deflowering Waldo was a rollercoaster of stylized hilarity. Waldo's psychologist, the brilliantly uninhibited Heather Dudenbostel, must visit his room to analyze him, since he will not leave. Convenient for her, since her only real plan is to de-virginize him. There are problems, though. Waldo's mother (Cheryl Lynn Crabtree) has dinner on the table and his father (Robert Eigen) wants him to mow the lawn. (Waldo's father has also recently adopted a Scottish accent.) To make matters worse, his newest girlfriend (Megan Sass) is pounding down the door to know why he stood her up on their date. The cast is rounded out by Danielle Strauss as Waldo's ex-girlfriend and Erin M. Callahan as the Monster under Waldo's bed.
Levin, as Waldo, is the axis on which this frightening carousel revolves, and he is up to the task. He provides a mania that fits into the stylized nature of the show, but never loses the honesty we need to believe in his fears. The rest of the cast follows suit to bring a sincerely touching conclusion to the frantic evening, tightly directed by Jeff Crosley.
From the divine to the absurd (and back again) Collaborative Stages' double feature of Somewhere In Between and Deflowering Waldo made for an evening of tears, both of laughter and catharsis.
