CRY IT OUT – Written by Molly Smith Metzler; Directed by Candace Orrino. Produced by BETC (Presented at the Dairy Center, 2590 Walnut, Boulder) through August 24. Tickets available at 303-444-7328 or thedairy.org.
Some people can write plays. Good plays. Others put people on stage and open a window to their world. Molly Smith Metzler is a window opener. From the first delighted “Oh, this is so much fun!” delivered with such joy by Lina, one of the new mothers, the audience was in her pocket. It usually takes at least a few minutes for the audience to discover who the people on stage are. But we knew these women in the first 30 seconds with their baby monitors, iPhones, vulnerability, and joy.
A script, however, is just words on a page. Good words ready to be brought to life. Noelia Antweiler and MacKenzie Beyer took those words and turned them into REAL women. Happy, sad, funny, conflicted, angry at times, tender at other times – REAL unfiltered women. All of us who have had a child have gone through some (if not all) of the emotional highs and lows these women experienced in the 90 minutes we shared with them. MacKenzie gave the potty-mouthed Lina just the right amount of sparkle and kickass humor that you couldn’t be offended by anything she said or her reactions to the two interlopers into their backyard world. Noelia was the tender-hearted, forgiving one of the pair. Being kind, however, did not diminish her side-eyed view of the world and her place in it. A true, loyal, no-matter-what friendship like theirs doesn’t come along every day. My prayer at the end of the evening was the hope that everything they went through in the first months of their friendship would not diminish over time.
The mentioned interlopers were Mitchell and Adrienne, another new baby couple who live “up the hill” on the posher side of their community. Yet a similar set of misunderstandings and confusions is not made any easier by their financial ease. Erika Mori as Adrienne is at first painted as an unfeeling mother in direct conflict with Lina and Jessie’s overwhelming connection to their new children. A later scene gives her context and illustrates the schism in her marriage to Mitchell – played with subdued control by Marco Alberto Robinson. Their viewpoints about marriage and parenting are equal and opposite, with neither wrong. It’s a little harder to predict how their experiences will play out as the child grows.
But what a ride we have been on in the meantime. The drama is played out in a typical uncared-for backyard, complete with the all-American white picket fence and inappropriate (for years to come) children’s toys. But it’s where both mothers’ baby monitors reach, and they can hear their babies finish their naps. The inspiration for the set belongs to Tina Anderson, Set Designer extraordinaire. Costumes by Riley Anne Martin delineated the differences in character and financial status among the actors, while Katie Hopwood found the props that filled in the story. Lighting by Erin Thibodaux and Sound by Rowan Livengood (including occasional crying babies) completed the picture. The nuanced script is carefully explored under the direction of Candace Orrino (forgive my bias!) as only a woman and a mother could.
BETC chooses wisely the shows to present and then pulls out all the stops to bring those scripts to life. The “new” (relatively) management for this company – Jessica Robblee and Mark Ragan – is doing an outstanding job of guiding the company to new successes.
A WOW factor of 9!!