Theatre in Review: Communion (Urban Stages)

	Stephanie Cozart, Erica Bradshaw. Photo: Ben Hider

There's a dark cloud hanging over Urban Stages these nights, in the form of Daniel MacIvor's exceedingly grim three-hander. The characters in Communion are coping with loss -- of life, of faith, or of peace of mind -- and none of them is particularly eloquent about the agony eroding their souls. It's a heavy, hand-wringing experience; structured as a series of one-on-one confrontations, the play is loaded with stark revelations punctuated by plenty of dead air.

First up are Leda and her therapist, Carolyn. Leda is in her middle years and, dressed in sweats, sneakers, and stocking cap, she looks depressed beyond words. Her sullen silences and the way she haggles over every little detail of their sessions prove that first-glance impression entirely correct. For example, when Carolyn notes, after a prolonged silence, that Leda seems agitated, Leda replies, snarkily, "Jesus, I am agitated. That took fifteen minutes?" She then complains in extended fashion about Carolyn's choice of words. There's also an equally tiresome wrangle about whether either of them aspires to unpredictability. These minor skirmishes quickly threaten to become insufferable.

We gradually learn that Leda is a fallen-away Catholic, divorced (and none too happy about it), and semi-estranged from her daughter, Ann. She is also a cancer patient. These are all excellent reasons to be furious with God, life, oneself, whatever, but the scene consists almost entirely of Leda's childish, hostile acting-out, contrasted with Carolyn's poker-faced silence, punctuated only occasionally by her leading questions, each of which receives another stonewall non-answer from Leda, leaving us with little or nothing to grab onto. Clearly, Leda and Carolyn are a bad match; the scene climaxes with Leda demanding that Carolyn give her some advice, which, against her better judgment, she does.

I don't think I should reveal what Carolyn says, but the next scene features Leda and Ann, meeting up after several months apart. Among other things, Ann, who is born again, did time for burning down an abortion clinic, an act that Leda seems to treat as a youthful misadventure. MacIvor is a Canadian; don't felonies there rate more than a couple of months in jail? Leda is stunned to discover that Ann has gotten married to Bud, who works for the Fellowship. She rather pointedly invited her mother and stepmother to the ceremony. In fact, having accepted the love of Jesus has turned her into something of a pill, as indicated by her firmly set jaw and air of disdain. Leda, eyeballing Ann's outfit -- - a winter coat over a long, floral dress plus running shoes and white socks -- comments on her appearance. "We wear what the redeemed shall wear," Ann says, smugly, adding, "It's in the Bible." "I didn't know there was a fashion section," snaps Leda, for once displaying some wit.

Ann, who hasn't heard about Leda's illness, uses the news as a fresh opportunity for grievance, especially when Leda announces that she has ceased taking treatments. Turning on her dying mother, she says, "How do I even know you're not just making it up?" She adds, "You're afraid all the attention is going to be on me."

In the final scene, Ann, whose spiritual bubble has burst, seeks out Carolyn, who is shutting down her practice. Ann wants to grill Carolyn, seeking out details about Leda's situation, but, by this point, it is virtually impossible to care whether any of these women will ever find any satisfaction. That's because they aren't really women; they're carefully posed vessels of suffering, shorn of any detail that might take them from two dimensions to three. This is nothing against the three actresses who have taken on this Sisyphean endeavor. As Leda, Stephanie Cozart actually convinces one -- - at first, anyway -- - that powerful emotions are roiling underneath the surface. As her dialogue becomes more and more stilted -- - especially in Leda's meeting with Ann -- there's little that she can do about it; still, I'd like to see her again. Jackie Hansen sometimes makes Ann even more infuriating than the playwright intends, but she does also indicate hints of vulnerability behind her steely religiosity. As Carolyn, Erica Bradshaw has the toughest job, creating a character out of one-word answers and evasive responses, but she pulls it off -- - perhaps because, unlike the others, she isn't perpetually rattling off a bill of complaints. MacIvor also directed, which probably explains the studied pace and general air of portentousness.

Frank Oliva's set design is very simple, based on a handful of furniture pieces and a pair of upstage windows with vertical blinds, but it's enough, and it allows for blessedly rapid scene changes. Deborah Constantine's lighting is sensitively handled. Gail Cooper-Hecht's costumes are filled with pertinent details that help suggest what is happening with each character. Verne Good's sound design, which mostly consists of reinforcement for the production's incidental music, is perfectly solid.

Communion is one of the drearier experiences in town at the moment, an exercise in theatre-as-therapy that seems designed mostly to complement the scheduled talkbacks, with psychiatrists and bereavement counselors, offered by Urban Stages. It's so top-heavy with good intentions that it forgets to be interesting. -- - David Barbour