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    Theater Review: Available Light Closes 2022-2023 Season With Gut-Wrenching Look at Parenthood, ‘Cry It Out’

    One of the last articles I wrote before the pandemic was a preview of Molly Smith Metzler’s Cry It Out, interviewing director Eleni Papaleonardos in advance of Available Light’s production. Three years later, that production finally opened, cast and production team intact, at the performing arts center in the Wellington School.

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    Cry It Out takes place in the space between two duplexes in Long Island, in the middle of the Venn diagram between the island’s working-class history, its extended time as “affordable” middle-class housing for the Manhattan middle class, and its time as escape/Xanadu for the rich, as the shifting sands of the recent past make those distinctions starker.

    The friendship of Jessie (Whitney Thomas Eads), a corporate attorney who relocated from Manhattan for more space and proximity to her in-laws, and Lina (Dakota Thorn), an entry-level nurse living in her partner’s mother’s rental house, blossoms from interactions at the Stop & Shop and shared isolation. Before long, an almost-neighbor from the well-off part of town atop the hill, Mitchell (Jordan Fehr) stops by and asks if they’d invite his wife who’s having a “hard time” with their newborn: the unwilling third wheel to the party, Adrienne (Shanelle Marie).

    Cry It Out unfurls in vignettes, over roughly a month, with different periods of time between each scene. Papaleonardos uses that space with maximum effectiveness, letting the scenes sink into us and call back to one another; what starts off feeling like thin writing works as setting up negative space, letting the future scenes fill in those gaps and vice versa.

    I was struck within moments by how much Metzler’s play has that I don’t usually hear on a stage. The specifics about early motherhood – the graphic but tossed-off, because that’s just how it is, description of a “slash and splash” c-section, claiming space like a grocery store for your own instead of your spouse – are carved as though by a razor. In addition to that, I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a friendship that crosses economic strata, and neither ignores it nor gets bogged down in restating that fact over and over.

    The production takes that rich material and mines it for every piece of nuance, highlighting the specificity. Yun Yen’s set design, Baylee Sheets’ costumes, and Lonelle Yoder’s props do an astonishing amount of work to shade the characters and the world. When Jessie is going to meet someone closer to “her” world than Lina, we see her in different shoes; for a pivotal scene with Mitchell, she’s using very different coffee cups; the table and chairs appearing alongside the play-set their babies won’t be able to play on for years, not replacing it; a folded empty box of wine in wrapping paper; all astonishing.

    Those details bolster uniformly stunning performances. Whitney Thomas Eads uses the physical comedy and movement that are hallmarks of her works to create a character trying to move past earnest nervousness, coming from a world that didn’t have a lot of use for both, in hilarious and edge-of-your-seat painful ways, often in the same scene. Dakota Thorn’s powerhouse portrayal of Lina manages to imply an entire history of joy and pain alongside a hope for the future and a clear-eyed sense of how stacked the world is against her family and her child. Their chemistry is off the charts.

    Photo by Jabari Johnson.

    The relationship of Mitchell and Adrienne is an interesting river through the middle of the piece, refracting the main relationship but also serving as an interesting cautionary tale about how even the best intentions don’t always mean satisfaction, the difficulty of overcoming childhood trauma and how all the communication tools don’t necessarily mean you’re hearing the other person over your own assumptions. The gut-wrenching, oversharing monologue from Jordan Fehr gets perfectly complicated by a ferocious rejoinder from Shanelle Marie; both delivered to Eads’ Jessie instead of to one another. The way this production avoids villainizing any character, showing us how they’re all trying their best but still making it an exciting evening of drama, is another testament to the direction and the cast.

    I will say, if you have a foot or ankle issue like I did when visiting opening night, there’s a lot of walking winding your way through the school – if you can get dropped off at the entrance facing Fishinger Road by the garden, do so. But that mild physical discomfort faded within minutes of the lights going down and was almost entirely forgotten talking about it later that evening.

    Beyond the quality of the play and the production, Cry It Out takes Available Light’s commitment to community and care to yet another level. Coordinated by production manager Jaylene Jennings, the company partners with Sitting Made Simple to provide Childcare, also in Wellington, and also priced at Pay What You Wish like their tickets. It’s a gesture that hopefully points forward to making theater more accessible to everyone and it mirrors the warmth and care for motherhood and the world in the piece itself.

    Cry It Out runs through June 18 at the Wellington School (3650 Reed Rd) with performances at 7 pm Friday and Saturday and 2 pm Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit avltheatre.com.

    Photo by Jabari Johnson.
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    Richard Sanford
    Richard Sanfordhttp://sanfordspeaks.blogspot.com/
    Richard Sanford is a freelance contributor to Columbus Underground covering the city's vibrant theatre scene. You can find him seeking inspiration at a variety of bars, concert halls, performance spaces, museums and galleries.
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