Hats off to hat tricks
In hockey, a hat trick occurs when one player succeeds in scoring three times in a single game. At the Dance Space in Ashland, Dori Appel's new play Hat Tricks scores more times than I can count. Directed by Carolyn Myers with a finely controlled zaniness, the production unfolds on a simple, whimsical set anchored by Jane Hickinbotham's backdrop of brightly painted hatboxes and Shoshanah Dubiner's snazzy, endlessly intriguing costumes.
Hat Tricks is Appel's latest foray into the form she's developed in a number of earlier plays — "Lunatic Fringe," "Lost and Found," "Tilt" and "Hot Flashes" (co-authored with Carolyn Meyers) — a dramatic medley of discrete, somehow magical scenes linked by a common theme. It's a form ideally suited to Appel's vision, which strikes a fine balance between a sense of comedy verging on the absurd and a sensitivity to the poignant that pricks the heart. The transformations it conveys are subtle, like the moment when a pond freezes, or a dark mood lifts.
The eight scenes of Hat Tricks are united first by the haberdashery that pops up in each — from a fashionable, wide-brimmed straw number, to a junky baseball cap, to the horned helmet of a Valkyrie. These hats all turn out to be variations on The Red Hat, which has become a sort of cultural icon for aging female boomers who refuse to fade into the woodwork after menopause. Actors Brandy Carson, Shirley Patton, and Judith Sanford rise effortlessly to the challenge of embodying sixteen different members of that cohort as they grapple with the vicissitudes of life's second half, and much more.
In the evening's first act, "Bon Voyage" becomes a study in the powerful influence of the family of origin. Birth order and parental dysfunction have left their indelible stamp on three spinster sisters who meet before a cruise they're planning to embark on together. Carson is rivetingly dour as the oldest, Dottie, the "silent sulker," who hates shopping, loves winter, and is terrified of living down to her name. Patton, the willful, talkative middle child Lottie, still rebelliously sneaks cigarettes and runs up her credit card bill. She gushes and Dottie grouses, while Sanford as little sister Scottie pleads for harmony by reminding them of the family history they must transcend.
In the piece that follows, "Dream On," psychological realism dissolves into a bizarre Wonderland that is better witnessed than described. Two anonymous women, dressed to the hilt, meet at a café to sip tea and gobble cake, while the server (Carson), whose silence speaks volumes, sports an extra-terrestrial beanie, pours tea from an outlandish pot, and brings over a bowl chock full of gold fish. But in the midst of this non-sense, the two women discover an affinity around the topic of loss; their random self-absorption modulates into mutuality. It turns out they inhabit a dream, but it seems both are imagined figments, neither one the dreamer, who, upon awakening, will separate the new friends forever.
The wistful parting of Woman 1 and Woman 2 draws audible sounds of empathy from the audience--empathy with the difficulty and evanescence of human connections. The evening's second act brings glimpses of the darker flipside of this theme--the ease and persistence of human conflict--reflecting perhaps the impact on Appel's sensibility of post-9/11 events. It's no longer possible to retreat into the personal, psychological sphere to escape the shadow of politics and war.
"Gift Exchange" begins benignly with two friends, Allie and Darlene, and a lesson in Tai Chi, then breath turns to gasp as their seemingly random conversation leads to a startling revelation: Allie's father was subjected as a baby to one of John Watson's crueler behaviorist experiments in child-rearing. And Allie herself still bears the scars of Watson's "fear-induced conditioning." Thus, a theme that is all too relevant these days: one generation of children raised in terror and violence goes on to bequeath terror and violence on the next.
Similarly, "Vocabulary Lesson" explodes its genteel boundaries as a grandmother trying to avoid explaining the violence of Norse mythology to her grandson ends by exposing belligerence for the mindless obsession it is. Perhaps the most pessimistic, and most dramatic, of all the pieces in Hat Tricks is the shortest, "Treasure Hunt." Here two homeless people fight themselves into a red-faced rage over a flowered hat they find in a trash can, only to lose interest in it when their contention is defused.
Dori Appel's Hat Tricks will run weekends through Oct. 1 at the Dance Space. Call 482-2735 for information. Tickets at the door.
