Theatre in Review: The Edge of Our Bodies (TUTA Theatre/59E59)

	Carolyn Molloy. Photo: Anthony LaPenna

Whatever one thinks of The Edge of Our Bodies -- and, despite some baffling theatrics, it contains a great deal of beautiful writing -- it is a golden chance to make the acquaintance of Carolyn Molloy. As Bernadette, a boarding school refugee who has a series of strange experiences in New York while seeking the boyfriend who got her pregnant -- she seizes the stage with her first sentence and retains her grip until the stark finale. "I'm on the New Haven platform for the train to New York," she says, apparently reading from her journal, and we soon learn that she is bound for Brooklyn, where she plans a surprise face-to-face meeting with Michael, the young man in question, to figure out what happens next.

The text of this solo piece is filled with enough impertinent, precocious observations for Bernadette to stake her claim as Holden Caulfield's twenty-first century opposite number. Faintly disturbed by a group of men sitting on the train, she says, "Recently I have perfected the art of keeping to myself and I believe that I can make myself smaller; my face, my arms, yes even my breasts, though I can't afford to lose much in that area or I would be mistaken for a boy." An old man who speaks to her "has a face like wet Kleenex, with little broken blood vessels on his nose." During a visit, she complains, "The TV in the living room and the light buzzing above us seem to be enacting a conspiracy against peace of mind." Describing a Greenwich Village dive, she says, "The jukebox plays Radiohead and Nina Simone and Otis Redding, and a Hispanic barback mouths the words to 'Creep' while clearing booths."

There's also something strangely compelling about the series of episodes that constitute Bernadette's story. Seeking Michael, she encounters his father, Wayne, who, afflicted with prostate cancer, is fading away in plain view, even as he frets over the wife who recently vanished without a trace. And, in the bar, she meets up with Marc, a salesman, who sweet-talks her back to his hotel room for a cringeworthy sexual encounter that can stand up to Kristen Roupenian's "Cat Person" in the new literature of oddly compliant, passive-aggressive women and their joyless experiences. A twist of fate cuts the thread connecting her and Michael, and, by the end, having experienced a sea-change in her relationship with Michael and dealing with her pregnancy, she seems to have grown up a little.

Through all of these encounters, Molloy builds a multilayered character, a young woman who both craves attention and stands outside of her life, often focused obsessively on the details of neurosis and decay as she wanders a landscape of broken relationships and anomie. Typically, for a Adam Rapp play, the outlook is cloudy with showers: No hint of pleasure or fulfillment will be entertained, and depression appears to be everyone's default state. (The title comes from Wayne, who says, "Lately I feel like I can get outside my body. Barely outside of it. Just beyond the edge of what we know. Where the skin...contains us I guess would be the best way to describe it. Just past that limit...I can get to that place and just sort of float there.") Even so, Bernadette's narration is so well-described that I began to wonder if, despite his extensive catalogue of dramatic works, Rapp's true gift might be for fiction rather than drama.

This is well worth considering, because the only thing separating The Edge of Our Bodies from a literary reading is a baffling pair of devices. In Jacqueline Stone's production, the entire play unfolds behind a sheer black curtain -- the audience in 59E59's Theatre C is arranged in a U-shape around the playing area -- in a space decorated in a manner that calls to mind a private room in a chic nightclub, but which, according to the script, is supposed to be the set of a production of The Maids at Bernadette's school. (There is no way, sitting in the theatre, of divining this.) Near the end, the action is interrupted by a character known only as Man, who has a brief exchange with Bernadette. (Spoiler alert: He appears to be the janitor.) This is all willful obscurantism, seemingly intended to provide a theatrical context for an entertainment that otherwise is all prose, all the time.

That said, Martin Andrew's set design has a compellingly sinister quality, right down to the large bear rug that Bernadette occasionally wraps around herself like a fierce cavewoman. Keith Parham's lighting allows us to see the actress behind the curtain; he creates a number of moody, noirish looks using side- and toplight combinations. Joe Court's sound design includes a sinister undertone before the show begins and mysterious noises emanating from an old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder.

And even when one wants to resist Rapp's writing, it is nearly impossible, thanks to Molloy's commanding way with it. By the end, Bernadette has been subtly transformed, ready to accept the adult world and its necessary disappointments, all of which are subtly indicated by the actress. If this is one of the better offerings to come from the playwright in some time, its success is due, in no small part, to her. -- David Barbour