Show Response: The Complicated: STRIPPED

by Katie Walenta

To be in the audience of Cusi Cram’s stripped-back production of The Complicated was to be enveloped in a blanket of earnestness. The audience clapped often throughout the show, an impromptu symphony of anticipation and thrill. Central to both the set and the story was a vast claw-foot bathtub. I’ve been ruminating on how effectively the bathtub both grounded the world and brought us through time. It was kind of like a boat — we were all stationary on the boat, but the boat itself was on an adventure. I’ve also been thinking about a monologue the protagonist gave while propped up against the side of the tub. In the monologue, Manca talks about being away at school and becoming obsessed with a white van in the parking lot of her dormitory, convinced that something vile takes place nightly inside of it. The parallel of the white van’s imagined danger and the white tub’s imagined safety was a lesson in the power of memory. There was a talk-back following the performance, and something Cram said feels like the thesis of not only the script, but the entire theatrical experience the artistic team crafted. Cram talked about the nature of growing up in many different worlds. She expressed that along with the challenges of identity that she faced, her upbringing gave her diplomatic superpowers, and was, in a lot of ways, freeing.

The Complicated ran at LABrynth Theater Company Februuary 20th - March 3rd as part of the LAB:STRIPPED staged works in progress series.

Photo by Monique Carboni