Theatre in Review: A Map of Virtue (13P/Fourth Street Theatre)

	Jon Norman Schneider. Photo: Blaine Davis

Erin Courtney certainly packs plenty into the 70-minute running time of A Map of Virtue. There are strange coincidences, surprise meetings, complex back stories, and a brutal act of vandalism. For the first third, the tone is rueful, thoughtful, bordering on magic realism -- then it takes a left turn into flesh-crawling horror before flipping again, making a soft landing with a contemplative finale. Oh, and did I mention that it is narrated by a statue of a little bird?

If this sounds like the Drama Desk Award winner for Hodgepodge of the Year -- and I fear it does-- I hasten to add that A Map of Virtue has a way of getting your attention and keeping it, thanks to Courtney's eerily precise way with words and the tremendous assurance of Ken Rus Schmoll's direction. Courtney clearly isn't one for sticking to the rules -- except the one that says you get and hold the audience's interest. On that note, she succeeds very nicely, thank you.

At the center of the play are Sarah and Mark, total strangers who somehow can't get away from each other. Spying each other in a diner, their encounter is interrupted by an eerie Alfred-Hitchcock-like incident with a swarm of birds. Later, they cross paths in the Irish countryside, gazing at the sea. While there, Mark abandons a statuette of a bird, a souvenir of a childhood scarred by sexual abuse; Sarah picks it up, and, in some weird way, it acts as a silent muse, driving her to art school and success as a painter. ("And it happened so fast, and because some of my friends were struggling painters, well, let's just say, I'm not friends with them anymore," says Sarah, giving us a glimpse of her no-nonsense personality.)

As time goes by, Sarah and Mark continue to find themselves weirdly connected to each other. She paints a portrait of the bird statue; he sees it in a gallery window and hacks it to bits with a knife. The act is caught on video -- and yet, when she sees it, Sarah says she doesn't recognize the perpetrator. Even more mysteriously, she soon takes Mark as a friend. By now it should be clear that psychological realism isn't on Courtney's to-do list -- if it were, Mark wouldn't be so calm about his horrific childhood experiences -- but any qualms about believability are overruled by her skill at constructing a universe where anything can happen.

That skill is tested in the next sequence, in which Sarah, her husband, Nate, and Mark attend a party where June, an acquaintance, offers to drive them to another get-together in the country. I don't want to tell any more except to note that what starts out as lark ends up as a hostage situation, the terms of which are left frighteningly unexplained. Aided by Schmoll's direction, which convinces one that terrible things are happening just out of one's sight, and by Tyler Micoleau's lighting design, which at times requires only two instruments to create a pitiless atmosphere of dread, these scenes are memorably creepy.

Redemption of a sort follows, although there is plenty of scar tissue to be explored, and, when it is all over, you may find yourself wondering what A Map of Virtue is all about. The script is arguably overloaded with thematic red flags - or are they red herrings? -- including, but not limited to, the preponderance of bird imagery. Surprisingly, the decision to assign the narration to the bird statuette (rendered, in human form, by Birgit Huppuch) isn't as cutesy as it probably sounds. Her speeches have a way of underlying the author's interest in the inexplicable arcs of her characters' lives, following the strange patterns that they make.

It helps that Schmoll has assembled a cast that is firmly on Courtney's wavelength. Maria Striar's cool intensity and no-nonsense manner are put to good use in the role of Sarah; she is especially good in the opening, conveying a deadpan sense of wonder at the oddball things that keep happening to her, and near the end, when she is haunted by a guilt that is stronger than anyone can explain away. As Mark, Jon Norman Schneider requires only a slight hesitation or a tiny twitch to make us aware of darker emotions stirring under his deceptively casual demeanor. Cast as June, Annie McNamara makes quite an impression as the kind of woman you definitely don't want as a party companion, and, as her partner in unspeakable crimes, Jesse Lenat delivers a couple of eerie ballads, accompanied by an acoustic guitar.

The production is really defined by Micoleau's lighting and Daniel Kluger's sound, which includes passing cars, birdsong, and gunshots, a jazz rendition of "Sunny Side of the Street" and what sounds like some Chopin piano etudes. Marsha Ginsberg's set is an exercise in extreme minimalism, and her costumes seem right for the characters.

I don't want to make too much of A Map of Virtue; it's a strange piece, and I can imagine many in the audience finding it rather too studied in its approach. But Courtney has an original voice -- the one thing a writer can't buy -- and I found myself giving in to her vision. She's a name to look out for. David Barbour