Theatre in Review: O.K.! (INTAR) O.K.! is a backstage comedy about abortion; that's not a combination I ever expected. The characters in Christin Eve Cato's play are appearing in a "bilingual parody of Oklahoma!" fashioned around the Mexican revolution of 1910. (You've gotta wonder what that entertainment is like. Maybe Pancho Villa is a character? He has already been the subject of the 1962 flop musical We Take the Town. But I digress.) On a three-month tour, the troupe is in Guthrie, Oklahoma, a small town near Oklahoma City. The location is significant because Melinda, who plays the reimagined Oklahoma's Laurey figure, discovers she is pregnant. She has immediately scheduled a termination at a local clinic, but her timing is off; suddenly, new state legislation makes such a procedure illegal except to preserve the life of the mother. Clearly, Melinda is in a pickle. O.K.! tackles this situation in three ways, with varying degrees of success. The first scene, laying out Melinda's limited options -- finding a nearby state with abortion care, getting an appointment, keeping her news private and free from prosecution -- is accurate as far as it goes, but it plays like a public service announcement, being packed with facts that will be familiar to anyone who follows the news. This is the preaching to the choir portion of the evening -- I doubt that a single person in the INTAR audience is uninformed about such matters -- and it is frankly dull. Next, Jolie, who plays the Aunt Eller equivalent, produces her pack of Tarot cards, and the play makes a sharp left turn into campy fantasy, as various Tarot figures come to life, offering gnomic advice that provides Melinda with little practical guidance. Sample tidbit: "I sense a stalemate of a magnanimous multitude." (As Jolie admits, helplessly, "Nothing in tarot is ever about being good or bad. It's just...I don't know...wisdom). I found this tonal switch-up, marked by eerie music and saturated lighting effects, unnecessarily jarring, but I would be lying if I didn't report that the audience ate it up. Admittedly, it gives the entire production a jolt of energy, although to my eyes it looks like a playwright playing for time. O.K.! gets interesting in its final third when it becomes clear that Melinda doesn't know if she even wants an abortion. Jolie, who has a solid, if overly familiar, monologue about the incident of date rape that led her to terminate a pregnancy, unexpectedly argues in favor of Melinda keeping the baby. She is less than persuasive, given Melinda's unresolved relationship status, lack of health insurance, and shaky career prospects, to say nothing of her profound ambivalence about motherhood. Still, a question that seemed decided has been reopened, and no easy answer is on offer. The play insists on the right to abortion while exploring the idea that it might not be the right choice for Melinda -- and I wish that more time had been spent exploring this personal conundrum. Cato might also address the plot details that raise awkward questions. Melinda is in her sixth week; if the play is on tour, might she not soon be in a state with more liberal laws? The possibility of having to return to New York is raised without anyone considering Illinois as a relatively safe nearby option. To its credit, O.K.! intelligently lays out the practical challenges of obtaining an abortion in heartland America, while making clear that it's not such an easy choice to make. But even as it examines Melinda's dilemma from various angles, it never digs deeply enough. One wants to know more about her unreliable mother, the partner she loves but maybe not enough, and her fears of sacrificing her theatre career. If O.K.! doesn't fully explore this issue either on the broader level or in terms of its characters' specific situation, Melissa Crespo's direction is lively, paced by the performances of Danaya Esperanza, who gets at Melinda's conflicted feelings, and Yadira Correa, who makes Jolie's case as incisively as possible. Also solid is Claudia Ramos Jordan as Elena, the play's Ado Annie figure, offering a steady stream of sassy commentary, and Cristina Pitter as one of those all-seeing, all-knowing stage managers who keep the theatre alive, here assuming the role of deus ex machina. Even with their presumably tiny budgets, INTAR productions always look good, and this is no exception.Rodrigo Escalante's cruddy dressing room set fully justifies the ladies' complaints about their working conditions. Lux Haac's costumes lay bare the extensive process of suiting up in 1910-era costumes. Maria Cristina Fuste's lighting and the sound by Daniela Hart and Uptown Works NYC are also effective. Given recent events, I suspect that more dramas tackling abortion rights are on the way; hopefully, they will be as imaginative as O.K.! but with additional focus and rigor. --David Barbour 
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