DROWNING OPHELIA (Ensemble Atria & EagerRisk Theater): 2016 Fringe review 13

drowning-ophelia-fringe-review

Jane’s subconscious is in the bathtub, and her name is Ophelia (the charming Lindsay Andreanzsky). Jane (Victoria Rae Sook) has a hard time controlling her, especially when her brother Adam (Levi Morger) appears in memories. Ophelia loves Adam and play-acts and laughs and teases him. Adam is…strange, and empathically played by Morger. Jane in the present can’t and won’t talk to her brother, so she pays a kind man, Edmund, to come and role-play.  Erik Endsley as Edmund switches seamlessly from knight to British fop to himself, to hallucinatory effect, and conscious and subconscious all run together.

But Ophelia won’t be silenced. The past takes over eventually, and Jane and the rest of us have to finally look at what went wrong. This poetic and powerful production, written by Rachel Luann Strayer, understands that sometimes what’s in our head is more real than what’s outside of it.

[The Iron Factory 118 Fontain St, 3rd floor] September 10–13, 2016;  fringearts.com/drowning-ophelia.

This play may be triggering for victims of abuse.

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