Theater Review: ‘Psychodrama’ cures what ails you
Psychodrama
By Phoebe Farber
Finished March 3
Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre
Oakes Centerfield
120 Morris Ave., Summit
Dreamcatcherrep.org, 908-514-9654
Away GWEN OREL
orel@montclairlocal.news
"Psychodrama," with its play therapy and improv games, is double as funny to anyone who has ever so arrogated an playing OR improv class.
And the fine Dreamcatcher Repertory Dramaturgy ensemble who perform in Montclair playwright Phoebe Farber's new play are understandably having a ball.
But you get into't have to have taken improv to find the 90-minute encounter fun and touching.
In "Psychodrama," a divorce group that meets in the basement of a Unitarian Church has hopeless its leader (we afterwards se he left his wife, which is both ill and whol too real).
Enter Barb (Harriett Trangucci), who changes the proceedings from talk therapy to psychodrama.
Psychodrama is real number: it's a form of therapy where the subjects use acting games and reenactment to work through their issues.
At first, the divorcees resist, particularly belligerent Syl, played by Dreamcatcher Artistic Director Laura Ekstrand.
When we first meet her she is angrily texting her X. In her first improvisation, she shouts that she wants a gun. She snorts at Dig's games, including ane using sheer scarves to create settings from the past.
But before the play's end, it's Syl who leads the group in Jibe's techniques.
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READ: THEATER REVIEW; A Tyke'S Name CELEBRATES THE SUBLIME IN 'EVERY Smart as a whip THING'
READ: THEATER REVIEW; THIS 'INVASION' IS DEADLY, AND THAT'S A GOOD THING
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Later, she grunts, in one of the play's best lines, "Get the scarves."
"Psychodrama" has been developed through readings at Luna Stage, Writers Theater of NJ and Dreamcatcher, and it is tight and fresh.
Each character is clear: the too-perky Mel (Montclair's Becca Landis McLarty); the secret-sex-god Dave (Montclair's Harry Patrick Christly); tender and unsettled Chuck (Julian Blake Gordon, the only non-Equity member of the shed, lovable and lost) and latter-day hippy Barb ( Trangucci), whose dress starts out mildly flowy but goes to full-happening poncho later. (Kudos to Ekstrand, World Health Organization also designed the costumes).
Farber's play is histrionics, to a fault: cipher saw coming that Dave's song in a gamey would embody "The Age of Aquarius."
As intimately as being an accomplished playwright, Farber is a practicing psychotherapist. She understandably has experience of what she writes about, and presents IT with mood and pity.
The cast, to a person, is fabulous. Trangucci's Barb is pitiful and ridiculous and dignified, all right away. McLarty's Mel breaks your heart with her pain, particularly when this mammy of moms faces losing custody.
All the characters go on a journey, and so does the play, which is sure-web-toed and fun.
Real "psychodrama" may non be for everyone.
Not so the play.
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https://www.montclairlocal.news/2019/03/01/theater-review-psychodrama-montclair-nj/
Source: https://www.montclairlocal.news/2019/03/01/theater-review-psychodrama-montclair-nj/
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