Written by Melanie Marnich and directed by Emily Garrison ’16.5, Production Workshop’s “Tallgrass Gothic” stuns with secrets, scandal and regimented religion. Running this weekend, the show incorporates both mystical Gothic elements and the harsh realities of domestic abuse.
Laura, played by Haley Schwartz ’17, spins through the play’s small Southern town setting in flowered dresses and leather boots. Trapped in an abusive marriage, she holds onto the hope of running away with her true love Daniel, played by Ezra Dulit-Greenberg ’18.
The story is simple until doubt infects Haley’s affair and characters start picking up weapons. Laura’s husband Tim, played by J.D. Laurence-Chasen ’17, evolves from the trope of an abusive husband to a multifaceted, fallible man as the story progresses.
The themes of violence and abuse in the play were not taken lightly, Laurence-Chasen said. “The events that take place in the show are things that happen to real people,” he added.
“Tallgrass Gothic” confronts serious and troubling themes, but it does not fit perfectly into any one genre. “It’s kind of like a character study of this town,” Garrison said.
With a background in dance, Garrison built the show around movement. She also wrote original music that brings the play to life, she said. Influenced by hymns, the songs allow characters to voice subtext and deepen the mystical thrall cast over the audience.
Religion threads through the play, taking the forms of angelic costumes and themes of sin as well as biblical imagery and chanted prayers. “The church is where these people are supposed to absolve themselves of their sins, but they can’t,” Garrison said. “It’s a lot more judgmental than that.”
Ranging from a heavenly golden haze to a hellish fiery glow, the production’s lighting design adds to these religious overtones.
“Tallgrass Gothic” uses about 70 pieces of lighting equipment in PW’s black box theater, said Matt Steinberg ’19, the show’s lighting designer. “Things get a bit less natural as they get a bit more sinister, (and) I wanted to echo that with the lighting,” he said.
Littered with coarse language and lightning-like flashes, “Tallgrass Gothic” mimics a storm as emotions heighten and damage accumulates. While richly colored light spills over them, the characters unbutton the question of how we can have faith in anyone at all.
“You can stop your heart whenever you want to,” Laura tells her best friend early in the play. “Doesn’t even hurt.”
