By Eva Phillips
Obsession and compulsion are curious things. Often, there is an ascetic sterility that’s assumed—fastidiously organizing all the marginalia of one’s existence so nothing is out of place or touches something it shouldn’t; constantly fretting about the most infinitesimal details. When obsession and compulsion manifest in over-consumption, mess, curated chaos, or hoarding, they aren’t acknowledged or regarded with the same severity or even dignity as purified obsession and compulsion. The two extremes aren’t regarded as sharing anything—except our ability to stigmatize them—let alone the same, devastating anguish, loneliness or need to perfect at their root.
Lissa Brennan’s Hoard, the newest original project from off the WALL productions, is a brutally honest confrontation of both extremes of obsession and compulsion—through the lens of the “messier” manifestation—to expose the aching humanity that lies beneath both. Brennan—who is teaching a master class in self revelation throughout the script—situates her audience right in the prodigiously cluttered living room—or bedroom? or mud-room? hard to say through all the hillocks of newspapers, figurines, cleaning supplies and other dross—of Viv (Virginia Wall Gruenert), a middle-aged woman who, we learn, clings feverishly to her all the items she has, of course, hoarded over her many years to contend with the absence left after her husband’s death and offspring’s effective abandonment. Viv is visited by organizational/life coach/interventionist Claire (Erika Cuenca), who has been sent by Viv’s estranged daughter to perform a last-ditch effort house expurgation lest Viv is forced out of her home and into assisted living.
Viv (Gruenert) and Claire (Cuenca) face the mess
As Claire and Viv “get to know” one another—much to Claire’s discomfort and chagrin, it should be noted—their interactions are predicated on idioms and colloquialisms. Comical interactions about unique identifiers for rooms and fixtures in Viv’s home, and peculiar turns of phrase are the basis for how these two women come to understand and navigate one another. But idioms and bargains quickly transition to Viv and Claire ruthlessly stripping away each other’s defenses and guises to expose that the woman who can’t throw away one of her five Swiffer brushes and the woman who despotically craves order share similar gnarled scars. And if the woman who hoards religious trinkets and coffee pots is stockpiling damningly similar pain and rejection as a woman so reserved she avoids informal names, then what does that mean for them? Or for the audience watching?
Hoard is a fascinating hybridization of the narrative and aesthetic eccentricities of Pittsburgh and New York theatre. The result of this synthesis is surprisingly impactful. In a sense borne of creative collaboration between off the WALL and New York City company the cell, (where the show will relocate to for a second run to after its Pittsburgh stagings) Hoard features the talents and perspectives of the cell’s artistic team members Kira Simring as Director, Brian Reager as Co-Director and Dramaturg, and Kayla Santos as Stage Manager.
Claire (Cuenca) and Viv (Gruenert) duke it out
Simiring, Reager and Brennan engage in a wonderful stylistic symbiosis throughout Hoard: the palpable raw, gritty energy in the direction recognizes the blistering intensity of Brennan’s work, and levels out and enriches that intensity with a more concentrated, delicate precision. The director and co-director have a clear penchant for detail that refuses to ignore the necessary mess of human emotion. Santos teams up marvelously with the adroit work of Lighting Designer and off the WALL regular Paige Borak, and the environment cultivated on stage for Hoard is convincing and upsettingly familiar for anyone who has been in the home of an obsessive hoarder. Special commendation must be given to Tucker Topel, though, whose work in props and scenic design transcends verisimilitude and makes the mess of Viv’s home a third character in its own right. Brennan’s script combined with the creative team’s touches make Hoard feel eerily like home for anyone who came of age and developed their crippling psychoses in the late 90s (hi, it’s me) in a beautiful way.
There is an intensified accountability, dependency and unique intimacy inherent to two-person shows that should not be left in the hands of performers unwilling or unable to thoroughly commit to one another and their material. It should go without saying (but I’ll gladly say it repeatedly and effusively) that Virginia Wall Gruenert and Erika Cuenca are unequivocally the performers two-person shows should be created for—impassioned, invested and thrilling from start to finish.
Gruenert manages to be all at once seasoned and steadfast while exuding such an entirely refreshing essence. Though Brennan admirably never subjects Viv to stereotypical twitches or monologues one has come to expect from female characters of a certain age in the throes of compulsory addiction, Viv often is relegated to being the fulcrum of Claire’s epiphanies. This could force a less gifted actor into a performance riddled with ho-hum idiosyncrasies, but Gruenert is, of course, not that kind of actor. Gruenert gives Viv warmth and humor and delicate sorrow that is never heavy-handed; and she just as readily unleashes venomous spite that speaks volumes to the complicated burdens and defenses at Viv’s core. If you think that the journey Gruenert embarks on as Viv in the first hour and twenty minutes of Hoard is astonishing and heartbreaking, then buckle up for the journey she goes on in the final ten.
What Erika Cuenca does on stage is not perform, but fully exist as her given role. This is a step beyond inhabiting a role, which still gives some functional nod to the artifice of it all; this is more of an exhaustive sacrifice of self that tremendously benefits the audience and the overall quality of the given show. Such a selfless, studied performance is absolutely the case with Cuenca as she channels Claire. Cuenca’s ability to bring life a woman so deeply entrenched in obsessive self-repression and arbitrary purification is the definition of effortless—which is all the more impressive when one considers the immeasurable amount of labor that existing as Claire must necessitate. Brennan’s complicated attachment to Claire is evident throughout the script, and Cuenca’s ability to honor both the playwright’s affinities and give her character its own life is startlingly impressive. There are few actors in Pittsburgh who I have watched deliver as many uninterrupted monologues as I have Cuenca, and she never fails to exhilarate and excoriate (in the best way)—her turn as Claire continues this striking performance record.
Hoard is as successful as it is because it cuts and refuses to suture you up—but leaves you with some rubbing alcohol and a bandage. The wounds that Brennan creates and explores are ones that she clearly knows all too well, and by virtue of that knowledge understands that she can show them, but she cannot, and has no desire to, help you heal them. That’s the intriguing, breathless danger of a Brennan play with the off the WALL touch. Hoard could not have been taken on by a more gifted and innovative artistic team and pair of performers, and the experience of the show is one that should not be missed. Just be mindful where you sit.
Hoard runs at off the WALL’s Carnegie Stage through March 21st. For ticket information, visit their site. Hoard will then show at the cell in NYC April 2-18. For more information on the cell and ticket information, visit their site.
Photography Credit: Heather Mull.
Categories: Archived Reviews