Phillyist Reviews... Vieux Carre

Two-thirds of the venue has been converted to 722 Toulouse in the Vieux Carre district of New Orleans; the remaining third is equipped with risers to permit audience seating. Unfortunately, this ratio makes much of the action of the play seem far away and, with Matt Sharp's lighting design too dim for so vast a space, very, very difficult to see. (I found the lighting in Ego Po's production of Spring Awakening similarly dark.) Actors who I should have recognized by sight from the moment they walked onstage had to speak before I knew who they were.

It's a shame, too, that the action of the show is so difficult to make out, because from what you do see (if you squint) and hear, it's evident that Ego Po has put on a very solid and well-acted performance of a very difficult play. The cast handles the material, with its multitude of dialects, adroitly and manages to get the point across even when at its least visible. Leah Walton gives an especially noteworthy performance as Mrs. Wire, a character probably thirty years older than the actress herself. Another standout performance is given by Andrew Borthwick-Leslie (who, in the interest of full disclosure, is a former professor of mine) as the effete painter Nightingale, the next-door neighbor of Williams' alter-ego, The Writer, played by Doug Greene. Borthwick-Leslie is, however, saddled with the most odd and incongruous part of the production: afflicted with tuberculosis, Nightingale is to be taken to a charity hospital at the order of Mrs. Wire. To avoid this, The Writer suggests the painter commit suicide instead, knowing that his friend's fate is sealed either way. To set this scene apart, or perhaps to make it more surreal and less emotional, the director, Lane Savadove (also Ego Po's artistic director) instructed Greene and Borthwick-Leslie to speak into hand-held microphones that cause their amplified voices to reverberate eerily around the theatre. For a production so rooted in realism, this leap into performance art doesn't ring true and ruins the pathos of the moment.

The play recovers from this, and quite nicely, too, coming to a satisfying, if somewhat depressing, conclusion. With two local productions now under its belt, it's safe to say that Ego Po's unique approach to drama is a welcome addition to Philadelphia's burgeoning theatre community – if only they could use a little more lighting next time.

Because Ego Po's press CD didn't want to load on our computer, we couldn't use a production photo from their production of Vieux Carre, running through this weekend at the Christ Church Neighborhood Meeting House. Instead, the image above is called "Le Vieux Carre," and is by Flickr user twoblueday.