- OTHER MEDIA
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- Hardly Breathing by Deborah Wade
- SF Bay Times March 15, 2007 (Linda Ayres Frederick)
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- Yes, Ripe Theatre’s latest original piece, Hardly Breathing, is
a hard-boiled detective story of mystery, betrayal and champagne. Written
by company member Deborah Wade, and directed by Ripe co-founder Noah Kelly,
Hardly Breathing hearkens back to 40’s film noir thrillers except
for one major difference: HB’s dick is a Jane and her name is Star
Malone.
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- “Dressed in a tight fitting black jump suit and leopard-skin high
heeled boots,” (costumes by Sarah McKereghan) Star (Deborah Wade)
crosses to the window, bending ever so suggestively close to her latest
waiting client William Benton (Chris DeJong), “Billy” to Star.
He wants to hire the highly recommended Star to help him find his wealthy
“missing” father. But before he can say anything more, she puts
her hand up and cocks her head to listen. “Do you think you were followed?”
sultry Star asks.
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- “No! Why would I be followed?”
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- “Listen, Billy, you seem like a sweet kid and I’d hate to
see you get hurt but this is a dangerous business. You have to watch your
own back [she cranes her neck to look at her back] and that…is not
easy.”
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- Spoofing at every turn, the story heats up and before you know it,
client and detective share more than hot stares. As in all good mysteries,
things get complicated. The easily cowed sweet William is engaged to a
demanding Jane (Trish Tillman), a poet who works as a dental hygienist.
She’s received a letter congratulating her as “Poet of the Year”
for her “Rhymes that Rock” with an invitation to attend the awards
ceremony in Des Moines, Iowa. She shares the news with William at a restaurant,
celebrating Valentine’s Day while disdainfully watching other lovers
express affection more openly. We soon feel the tension in their less than
perfect relationship.
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- On Peter Q. Parish’s clever, quick moving turn-table set, the
scene changes to the 47th floor balcony of a high-end hotel. Malone is
coolly excited to let Billy look through the binoculars at the father she
has found for him across the way. Only, it’s not his father. Well,
you can’t always be right, especially if you don’t know what
he looks like. More importantly, Star has succeeded in something better.
Miraculously, she has cured Billy of his fear of heights. Sharing his new-found
confidence later on the phone with Jane, now ensconced in her Des Moines
hotel room, Billy reveals the source of his transformation. Less than pleased
with the news, Jane dumps him and in her poetic misery finds herself in
the arms of Charley (Mark Rachel) the hotel bellboy/room service/delivery
person. Charley is also broken hearted. His ex dumped him too, and Jane’s
ego is in terrible shape. Not only has she had to pay for her own airfare
to attend “the ceremony” but she’s the fiftieth of the fifty
“poets of the year” who have all paid fifty bucks for their “winner’s
fee.” The plot thickens as more secret identities and relationships
are revealed.
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- Will any of them find what they were looking for? Is what they were
looking for what they will find? With love and sex triumphing at the end,
Wade’s Hardly Breathing makes for a light-hearted but well
crafted piece of theatre with its wry wit and some very cleverly written
lines to enjoy.
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- The only drawback is in the disparity of acting styles. While the women
are vamping to the hilt, both men are playing more naturalistically. The
result is that the differentiation between the two female characters is
not as distinct as it could be. With Amanda Ortmayer’s moody lighting
design and Liz Roddy’s sound design, Hardly Breathing is still recommended.
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- RIPE Theatre, an EXIT company-in-residence, continues Hardly Breathing
through March 31, 2007 at EXIT Stage Left, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco.
Tickets are $10-20. Reservations phone (415) 673-3847 or visit www.theexit.org.
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