Kirsten Greenidge’s SPLENDOR (@ Company One
through Nov. 16th) unwraps in circles like an unwinding top, so that
the townsfolk we meet at the outset come back and overlap with new people, all
of whom add to the integral shape of a wobbly Massachusetts town. Greenidge’s
Bellington, like Grovers Corners, becomes an intrinsic part of her play: It can
haunt characters like Greenidge’s heroine, Fran Giosa. It can trap people, like
Fran’s school chum, Nicole. It can even, as one character says, “hold a
grudge.”
Director Shawn Lacount uses the playing space
at the BCA to surround us in a sweep of stolen moments played behind the
audience. We see snatches of connections across from us—or if we crane our
necks, behind us—perhaps a kiss, a song, a hesitation—caught by a searchlight
scanning the perimeter of the town. It could be our town, with its all important
Thanksgiving Day game and its unfortunate store closings and uptick in
unemployment and poverty.
Shame and regret seem to dog everyone’s
footsteps in Bellington. Fran (a lovely performance from Alexandria King)
really doesn’t want to move back. She has painful memories she just can’t
shake. She also has a mother (a bawdy, blowsy Becca Lewis) you wouldn’t want to
claim. Greenidge creates colorful characters like Greg Maraio’s big hearted patriarch,
father to Nicole Prefontaine’s outrageous Lisa (who gets the most delicious
lines!)
Everyone has a story, from Obehi Janice’s exasperated
ex-school counselor to James Milord’s angry absentee father of Fran and her
brother (a vulnerable Danny Mourino)….from Molly Kimmerling’s disappointed
housewife/mother to Michael Knowlton’s disillusioned ex-football star/husband
who’s having an affair with Hannah Cranton’s sad Colleen. And there are even
more secrets and affairs bubbling to the surface in Greenidge’s bird’s eye view
of America!
