Evelyn Brown (A Diary)
While the painstaking entry upon entry yearn to be something of import, we can’t help but feel it takes a certain steadfastness and desperate commitment to make the banal seem so extraordinary. This is where the brilliant attack of performance by Ms. Lauren as Evelyn, and Violeta Picayo as Evelyn Brown, come into play. Ms. Picayo can be thought of as the younger Evelyn, but the fact is they are both the same person usually on the stage at the same time, experiencing the same ennui. Ms. Lauren is the human map of a sometime wordless exploration of isolation. There is nothing secretive about it. We are witnesses to every one of her emotions as it makes its way across her face and into her beaten down yet stalwart physical life. Ms. Picayo sometimes has that innocent wide-eyed wonder that gets her through to the end of a scene, making us pity her for her stiff upper lip and beatific smile in the face of a life not well-lived. [more]