A DOWNSIZED HURRICANE
Hurricane Season at Theatre Row is an experimental play where it’s difficult to understand what is happening, and why, from the beginning to the very end. Produced by Atlanta-based company Vernal & Sere Theatre, written and directed by the talented Sawyer Estes — who uses a lyrical language, abstract movements, and a lot of sex to recount this tale of self-reflection — Hurricane Season is certainly provocative but doesn’t deliver on its premise.
Sam R Ross, Pascal Portney, Erin Boswell, Melissa Rainey
Pascal Portney, Sam R Ross, Melissa Rainey, Erin Boswell
It starts as a frank portrayal of a somber middle-aged couple, Anne and Tom, played by Melissa Rainey and Sam R. Ross. They are openly dissatisfied with their marriage; Anne is dying to communicate or get any kind of attention from her husband, feeling disconnected and resentful, while Tom is focused on their shared computer monitor, checking the stock market and watching porn. Ingmar Bergman called moments like these as “the agony of the couple.” They are also having a hard time accepting aging and both end up falling in lust with younger versions of themselves, two porn actors in their twenties they saw online.
Erin Boswell, Melissa Rainey
Melissa Rainey, Erin Boswell
We start exploring their hidden desires, wishing for more abstraction, but Estes immediately turns to a more realistic plot and a series of mind-boggling things happen: Anne makes up a work excuse to go to Amsterdam and stalk porn starlet Alex (Erin Boswell) while Tom secretly flies to a Los Angeles beach to stalk Trevor (Pascal Portney). Both of them succeed in meeting and having sex with their young victims; both go back home accompanied by their new lovers, without alerting each other, arriving at the same exact time.
Sam R Ross, Pascal Portney
Erin Boswell, Melissa Rainey
It doesn’t end here: Alex and Trevor live in two different continents but they have acted in the same porno movie — I guess to justify the fact that openly gay Trevor gets an instant erection and has passionate sex with Alex for absolutely no reason. We end up exploring Trevor’s sexuality, his daddy issues with hints at incest while Anne suddenly mutilates herself to be more like Alex — I suppose a metaphor of what some women would do to look younger; and it all seems written to jolt the audience without any cohesion. With too many gratuitous details to be an abstract projection of the couple’s sexual needs and long, the sometimes tedious, experimental inserts do not add anything to the dramaturgy.
Pascal Portney, Melissa Rainey, Erin Boswell, Sam R Ross
Pascal Portney, Sam R Ross, Erin Boswell
Fortunately, Sam R. Ross and Melissa Rainey are both gifted performers: Ross gives us a perfect depiction of the typical aloof husband, pleasant but remote, entirely occupied by his problems, while Rainey successfully projects her pain and fears even if she has to work with a very difficult part. Pascal Portney was ideal as a gay Beach Ken, working out in front of the sea, showing off his abs in his tiny bathing suit, going from cartoonish to dramatic with real ease, and Erin Boswell brings all the sparks needed to illuminate the dark subject, giving her character a sexual cheerleader’s edge.
Pascal Portney, Erin Boswell, Melissa Rainey, Sam R Ross
Pascal Portney, Melissa Rainey, Sam R Ross
The black-and-white projections by Matthew Shivley add poetry and insight to the piece, aided by Zach Halaby and Kacie Willis’s sound design. The set by Josh Oberlander, minimalistic and practical, serves as the needed barren backdrop, desolate like Anne and Tom’s relationship, while the light design by Lindsey Sharpless injects color and life to the scenes. Hurricane Season’s nontraditional approach is not the problem, nor is the cast and crew’s performance, or even the trite subject of loveless relationships dealing with the fear of aging. The problem is that this play needs less plot gimmicks, less stereotypes, and a lot more heart to become the promised ”visceral portrait of American life caught between erotic desire and national strife”.
Pascal Portney, Sam R Ross
Melissa Rainey, Sam R Ross
photos by Richard Termine
Erin Boswell, Sam R Ross, Pascal Portney, Melissa Rainey
Hurricane Season
Vernal & Sere Theatre
Theatre Row in Theatre Four, 410 W 42nd St in Manhattan
Wed-Sat at 7:30; Sat & Sun at 2; Wed at 2 (August 28); Tues at 7:30 (September 3)
ends on September 7, 2024
for tickets (starting at $45), visit Hurricane Season
Sam R Ross, Pascal Portney