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| Teri Lazzara and Sara Coates in A Small Fire (photo by Ken Holmes) |
by Adam Bock
directed by Julie Beckman
starring Teri Lazzara, Gordon Carpenter, Sara Coates, Ray Tagavilla
Sound Theatre Company
(at New City Theater, 18th and Union)
through June 21
Sound Theatre Company's season is set to examine the language of love and hate, they say, and their first production, A Small Fire, exhibits both in a searing exploration of family relationships during the height of illness.
The play by Adam Bock creates a brusk, non-nonsense woman (Teri Lazarra) whose feelings are so deeply buried that she doesn't have time to find them. She treats people with a no-nonsense air and a hurried manner that makes them feel like they're in her way. Her daughter (Sara Coates) has a lifetime of hurt from her mother's truth-hurts unboundaried comments, especially about her fiance. Her daughter even thinks that her father (Gordon Carpenter) should leave her mother and be happier without being berated by this demanding woman.
It remains for a co-worker, Billy (Ray Tagavilla) to demonstrate to us how much care is covered up by her brusk manner, as he details how she showed her belief in him by watching over him, yelling at him, and having others make him stick to his work or keep him from straying off the straight and narrow.