By Eva Phillips
Imagine the most elaborate world you can. Think of “elaborate” in this context in its strictest biological meaning—producing a new substance from original constituents or base parts. Or, think of “elaborate” here as something built upon and imbedded with the complex details of your interior self that are most true, but that you never share. Your elaborate world might be a sleek high-rise, where every floor contains people and memories that you have distorted over the years, but that nevertheless have lingered on in your consciousness. Perhaps your elaborate world is a barren desert blanketed by a hauntingly blue sky, placid and dry, with every anxiety you’ve ever had safely buried beneath the arid sand. Or maybe your elaborate world is, indeed, elaborate: a world containing many colonies, a panoply of species and tribes (all with their own complex set of rules and behavioral mores), and mythic creatures—all symbolizing or enlivening facets of your innermost self. But what happens when that elaborate world is all you have, truly, all you wish to live for? What happens when the world you have made is in perilous conflict with the world that surrounds you?
In off the WALL’s latest production, World Builders, the intersecting lives of Whitney (Erica Cuenca) and Max (Alex Silberblatt)—two individuals participating in an in-patient, experimental psychiatric drug trial—are examined through the lens of their personal relationships with their respective elaborate worlds. We are introduced to Whitney and Max as they huddled and anxiously perched in uncomfortably stiff chairs in a bright room that is only cheerily decorated to distract from the fact that it is, of course, a room in a hospital. Whitney, buzzing with nervous excitement and curiosity, begins interrogating a visibly distrustful and agonized Max about his idiosyncrasies, and, most importantly, his world. The world is that place in your mind that’s infinitely better than the outside world (primarily because you create it), that allows you to see and feel and explore all the things you otherwise aren’t allowed to. Whitney opines that Max must have a world in the way she has a world, and this is the commonality that has landed them in this trial (that, and, as Max points out, that they must have been involuntarily hospitalized before for their conditions).
It is evident that Whitney has a connection with and adoration for her world that Sam does not seem to share—she is jubilant to the point of ecstasy when she even references her world or some dimension of it, where Max stammers, paces, and violently avoids all of her attempts to get him to divulge secrets from his world (or try to care about hers). Whitney finds the prospect of sharing the details of her world with someone for the first time exhilarating, but more importantly, it is of dire importance that she do so. When the pills start working, Whitney warns, they will begin to lose touch completely with their worlds, and eventually lose sight of them completely.
There is an astonishing abundance of sincerity and heart in off the WALL’s adaptation of Johnna Adams’ original play that makes up for some of the potentially unintended bungles in sensitive representation that pop up throughout the script. It is admittedly a challenge for me to sit through plays that are limited to two characters, primarily because I project my own immense anxiety about having to interact one-on-one with someone and allow that tension to cloud my viewing experience. Cuenca and Silberblatt, however, are utterly engaging, masterfully enmeshing their individual quirks and mannerisms to make a uniquely harmonious pairing that is spellbinding to watch (and nearly impossible to not get emotionally invested in). Set and scenic designer Adrienne Fischer’s minimalist set is expertly laid out and meticulously detailed, and this well-crafted environment is ideal for allowing Cuenca and Silberblatt to building the intricate elements of their tenuous, but moving, relationship. Cuenca is exceptional, particularly as she is tasked with the role that, culturally, we are predisposed to misunderstand or dislike. Portraying a woman with psychological conditions that manifest in anti-social tendencies, neuroses, illusions of grandeur and so on, is particularly taxing given the cruel, monolithic archetypes we identify these women to be. Cuenca is as vulnerable as she is defiant, never once sacrificing nor embellishing the complexities of Whitney’s condition, and her evolution throughout the show is a powerful one to witness.
It is difficult to approach Adams’ script as a text concerned with mental illness—she at once downplays mental illness by never giving her characters any official or recognizable diagnoses, aside from Whitney’s declarations of her narcissistic personality (which is smart, lest you say a character has schizophrenia and utterly misrepresent what it is to live with that condition). Yet at the same time, she essentializes mental illness—the only reason Whitney and Max are where they are together is because they have been deemed unable to function without assistance, strict structure, and/or medication because of what they are experiencing psychologically. The thing which brings Whitney (and Max, in a much more conflicted way) so much joy, and a sense of autonomy and self-possession—her world—is framed to be a product of a psychological condition (emphasized by the eradication of the world that is the consequence of being medicated). While World Builders’ denouement is progressive and poignant within the ethical structure of the play, the tenuous stance on mental illness that is augmented by the looming “hyper-imaginative minds only exist in illness” trope is tricky to shake.
That being said, strikingly smart Director Linda Haston and her two stars navigate the source material with tremendous aplomb, and World Builders is devastatingly realistic examination of two individuals finding themselves by excavating both their internal and external worlds. The deft compassion of the cast and underlying questions about what types of worlds we choose (or don’t choose) to occupy and acknowledge make World Builders a beautiful and thought-provoking experience.
For ticketing and more information about World Builders, visit off the WALL’s homepage.
Categories: Archived Reviews