Stargazers

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[avatar user=”Scotty Bennett” size=”96″ align=”left”] Scotty Bennett, Critic[/avatar]

Most people’s lives are filled with a panoply of experiences, stretching from the mundane to the terrifying, with some mystery thrown in for good measure. Mystery is the abstract element in the human consciousness that can lead to choices that bring illumination or darkness. It is the thing that challenges the sense of self and the expression of self in the lived-in world.

Majkin Holmquist’s play Stargazers explores how a powerful, wrenching experience can shape one’s perception of reality and forever alter the landscape of one’s life. The show revolves around a mystery concerning a mother grieving almost ten years over the loss of her only child, a daughter, and how she processed the grief for her loss.

The play is set in the yard of an old dilapidated barn on an abandoned farm. There is a picnic table and a nearby stone fire pit. The farm has been in Rita Olds’ family for 150 years. Rita is played by Kelly McAndrew, who effectively portrays a character so traumatized by the death of her daughter that she divorced her husband and moved away from the farm, leaving it unused for nearly ten years.

The story begins with Rita being upset with Casey (Miles G. Jackson), a young man and friend of her late daughter Cate, whom Rita has hired as a caretaker for the unoccupied farm. His job is to mow the lawns and clean up trash from high school kids who party on the property. The issue at the moment is his starting up a tractor to plow and smooth an area behind the barn. The event upsets Rita to tears. She tells Casey to leave.

This establishing scene provides an important insight into Rita’s state of mind and introduces the first element of the mystery. What is it about plowing and smoothing the area behind the barn that got Rita so upset?

Later that same day, as Rita sits at the picnic table, a young woman named Clementine (Lizzy Brooks) approaches her. She is a representative of Dedham, a company that wants to buy Rita’s farmland as part of a plan to create a progressive utopian community. McAndrew reveals more of Rita’s character during the exchange with Clementine. It also provides an introduction to another mystery when a yard light starts to flash on and off after Clementine mentions Rita’s daughter and suggests that electrical cables had something to do with her death.

In the next scene, as Rita watches the yard light flash on and off, Al (Andrew Garman), her ex-husband, unexpectedly shows up. The light flashes during the conversation about why Al is at the farm, and he says he can fix it. Rita tells him not to touch it. What follows is a critical piece of information about the nature of Rita’s reality.

AL

Thought we were past this.

Thought we took care of this years ago.

RITA

Shut your mouth. You don’t know nothing, Al.

AL

You moved on.

RITA

But she didn’t.

AL

Oh really?

Cate. Cate. Give us a sign!

(The light buzzes on.)

AL

Jesus, Rita. It’s a coincidence.

All I see’s a faulty yard light that needs fixing. Betting a socket set could help with that.

What follows in the conversation is the fact that Rita had some mental issues following Cate’s death that required intervention, and Al thinks she is slipping off again. His reaction adds an important layer to the story about what is happening at the farm. Is the light a manifestation of Cate, or is it just a coincidence?

More elements of the mystery are added when four friends of Cate’s meet at the fire pit to drink and remember her. Jessica (Baize Buzan), Avery (Fernando Gonzalez), Casey, and Aracely (Keren Lugo) reveal the history of the high school drinking parties and how this particular location became the Stargazers. Aracely moved to Los Angeles nine years ago and had this visit paid for by Rita, who said she wanted her to help with some unknown project. Jessica said that Rita had also asked her for help with a project. Neither woman had been told the nature of this enterprise. How Cate died is also revealed, as well as some of the eerie experiences each of her friends have had over the years regarding her death.

At this point in the story, all the elements relating to the mystery have been stated. Why is Rita having such difficulty dealing with the farm? Is the ghost of Cate haunting the farm and revealing herself through the flashing yard light, or is that just a function of Rita’s mental state? What project is Rita enlisting Jessica’s and Aracely’s help for?

The script is ambitious but needs fine-tuning in the number of ideas presented that require more solid development. The ideas touched on range from conservative and progressive land use to the psychological and emotional impact of grief and women’s roles in a farming community.

The scenes establishing the outlines of the mystery tend to be episodic rather than tightly integrated narrative, building tension to a dramatic resolution. Colette Robert’s direction of the fine ensemble is spot-on and well-tuned within the confines of the script. Still, the script’s structure leads to the production’s episodic nature and ultimately fails to develop the strong air of mystery and suspense in a ghost story.

The cast is uniformly solid in their roles, with Buzan, Garman, Gonzalez, and Jackson playing two characters so perfectly that it was hard to tell that the same actor played them. McAndrew’s portrayal of Rita is a stand-out performance in the uniformly solid cast.

Reza Behjat’s lighting design effectively adds to the setting’s mysteriousness, particularly with the flashing yard light suggesting the presence of a ghost. The sound design by Tosin Olufolabi complements the lighting, allowing an element of strangeness to intrude into the ordinary. Lawrence E. Moten III’s set design perfectly sets the location and provides for scene changes with minimal adjustments. Finally, the costumes by Alicia J. Austin portrays each character well.

Stargazers (extended through May 10, 2024)

Page 73

Connelly Theater, 220 East 4^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit https://ci.ovationtix.com/3082/production/1190570

Running time: 100 minutes without an intermission