Theatre in Review: Bright Half Life (Women's Project)How do you sum up a lifelong love affair in 90 minutes? A tall order, no? As it happens, Tanya Barfield has the trick down cold. In Bright Half Life, we see the decades-spanning relationship of Erica and Vicky -- as workers, lovers, spouses, and, finally, exes, meeting by accident at a moment of crisis for one of them. But the author's approach is anything but linear; she takes a couple of dozen episodes -- some of them lasting only a few lines -- from their lives together and rearranges and repeats them, building a kind of psychological collage that proves to be irresistibly touching. Erica and Vicky meet on the job. Erica, who aspires to be a professor of English, is a temp, assigned to do data entry in a not-for-profit foundation where Vicky is the department supervisor. Erica immediately goes on the offensive, discreetly urging Vicky to go out with her. Vicky is equally nervous about breaching office protocol and being found out by her male boss. (It's the '80s and coming out in the workplace is a far more complicated business than it is today, even in New York City.) But Erica prevails, and before long they are a couple. We learn the above information only gradually because Barfield throws us into the middle of their story, with Erica mentioning the words "soulmates, an idea that may or may not exist." Through repetition, it becomes clear that this comment is part of a charged conversation about the words "I love you," which Erica is afraid to say, for fear of jinxing what she has with Vicky. Even the tiniest scene in Bright Half Life yields telling insights, sometimes because of its juxtaposition with what comes directly before and after it. We see them going skydiving and riding a Ferris wheel, both experiences sending Erica into a whirlpool of terror. We see them making love, stumbling through a proposal, shopping for a double bed, and, later, a kite. Their wedding day is marred when Vicky's father decides to bail at the last minute. In a restaurant, Erica has a cardiac episode -- or is it a case of heartburn? Gradually, the outlines of their relationship begin to emerge, aided by Barfield's gift of a swift and telling way with a line of dialogue. Erica may have pursued Vicky, but in some ways she remains the junior partner in the relationship. Erica is more politically active, volunteering, and joining marches while Vicky remains apolitical. Then again, Vicky notes that, being a black gay woman, she has achieved the trifecta of on-the-job prejudice. Erica notes that she, too, is oppressed as a lesbian, an idea that cuts no ice with Vicky. "I don't want to have to educate you about your whiteness," she says, barely able to contain her scorn. We see them getting teary-eyed at the wedding of one of their daughters, but only later do we realize that the scene is doubly poignant, because they have been divorced for years. The breakup, when it comes, is painfully real. Erica feels she has lost her identity; Vicky scathingly replies, "You don't have the luxury of a midlife crisis when you have kids." It is then that we realize the turning point for them came when Erica was offered a prized teaching job in another part of the country, but, not wanting to disrupt her life with Vicky, settled for a position close to home writing textbooks. Because Barfield leaps from one emotional flashpoint to another, we are able to assemble the story of Erica and Vicky for ourselves, coming to know them intimately. And when they run into each other many years later, and one is gravely ill and both are living alone, we see how a long-sundered relationship can persist in ghost form, a bit like the severed limbs that amputees can still feel. Bright Half Life might not work nearly as well as it does without performances as sensitive as those of Rebecca Henderson as Erica and Rachael Holmes as Vicky. They play together with rare intimacy, flirting, wisecracking, stepping on each other's lines, all with such finesse that one could swear they have spent half a lifetime together. They are especially touching in the final scenes, playing with a rueful intimacy that is capable of breaking your heart. Under Leigh Silverman's impeccably light-fingered direction, they leap from scene to scene, emotion to emotion, with total fluency. The pleasingly minimal production provides a fine stage for this emotional workout. Rachel Hauck's set design features a bare stage backed by a pair of towers with internal lighting that is used to good effect in the scenes set inside an elevator. Jennifer Schriever's lighting effectively carves and recarves the space as needed. Emily Rebholz's costumes cannily contrast Erica's butch look with Vicky's rather more feminine approach. Bart Fasbender's sound design includes a variety of scene-setting effects. Bright Half Life may seem like a small play -- two characters, a bare stage, a running time of less than 90 minutes -- but it contains multitudes of emotions and it builds its portrait of intimacy with an unusual sureness. When it ends, we feel we know Erica and Vicky as well as they know each other. That's a rare thing in the theatre. -- David Barbour 
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