The setting is Zeke's home in the New Mexico desert. The time is now.
At least, that's what the program would have you believe, but Stephen Kilduff's new play is as much about foreign countries and personal history as it is about the harsh isolation Zeke (David Johnston makes a convincing modern hermit) has built for himself and his family.
The family. Ay, there (as Hamlet would have it) is the rub. By running from the memory of his bitter father, Zeke is condemning his family to a monotonous desert exile. But the family, especially the teenage daughter with "the heart and soul of a poet," is none too keen on monotony. She needs to grow and change. This, as one character says, is called "life. The shitty part of it."
Zeke doesn't know that. He also doesn't know that daddy dearest is dead now, and Zeke's hitherto-unacknowledged brother Jason is en route to meet the family. There's a bequest to deliver, whether or not Zeke is ready.
So enter Jason, the cast-off brother, in a charming, anguished performance by Jay Coffman. He's carrying a box that will dredge up the past and forever alter Zeke's future. Nobody will be the same.
But you could have guessed all that (well, at least some of it) was coming if you'd skipped reading the program and paid closer attention to the subtleties of Marlaina Say's set, particularly the faint etchings on the back wall of Zeke's deck. Enough said.
The Uncurled Hand is the winner of Centre Stage's New Play Festival, and it shows, both in its occasional snags and in its incredible energy.
First, the snags, for they are minor. The opening is a bit bumpy--not quite enough tension builds up to the first father-daughter fallout. And the poet-daughter (admirably played by the Fine Arts Center's Sarah Hamilton), well, she never says anything really poetic, not until the play's end, by which time, you're so used to her clichés, that the words don't sit right in her mouth.
Then, the energy! There's a sort of electricity between the actors an audience that comes from knowing: this is something new. These characters are alive for the very first time. Glory (played fully and lovingly by Leslie D. Smith) and Zeke share such a spark that you never think to wonder how she got stuck with the curmudgeonly hermit. Zeke and his brother make sparks of another kind, but there, you do wonder. You wonder if both of them will come out of this alive, and if so, who will have destroyed whom? But while you might be afraid, you never worry too much, because in the background Reggie (the daughter) and her just-a-friend Peter (Kyle Carrion) are lighting some little fires all their own.
The setting is Zeke's home in the New Mexico desert. The time is now. But when you leave the theater, you won't feel the weight of that heavy wall leaning over these characters. The past has come and gone. The future is here, and it is bright indeed.
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Stephen Kilduff's “The Uncurled Hand,” directed by Dr. Brian Haimbach; set design by Marlaina Say; Costume design by Tonya Towne; Sound design by Hal Hawkins. Presented by Centre Stage, (864) 233-6733. Through July 19. Tickets $10.
WITH: David Johnston (Zeke), Leslie D. Smith (Glory), Sarah Hamilton (Reggie), Jay Coffman (Jason), Kyle Carrion (Peter)