Just as the spring thaw is melting the world around us, a play about people who are frozen by their emotions opens at Black Box Theatre in the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
Fran Pruyn directs “Frozen,” a Tony Award-nominated play by Byrony Lavery.
The action centers on three people with three very different perspectives on the same issue. One is Agnetha (played by Brenda Sue Cowley), a psychologist working on her thesis, “Serial Killing-A Forgivable Act?” Another is Nancy (played by Kathryn Atwood), the mother of an abducted child. The third is Ralph (played by David Spencer), the villain in the story.
“It’s an enormously intense piece,” Pruyn said. “An elegant melodic piece of theater, very poetic; and it doesn’t require a huge amount of attention to understand.”
The purpose of this play is to showcase the tragedy of those who commit heinous crimes and to probe the causes of their actions-to understand them and seek an answer to the question, “Is it illness or evil?”
“It’s not exclusively dark. It does explore the tragic sides of life, but the characters all have some light in them and even some comedy,” Pruyn said.
It’s often the director who has the vision when staging a play, but in this case, the playwright had the vision and was specific with instructions on how to set everything up. Pruyn kept it very fluid with an abstract set. She lets the audience make the aesthetic leap and let the script expose itself, allowing the actors to do the work.
“It is a very character-driven play and the actors are all doing amazing jobs. They have really gotten in and learned about their roles-even the ugly ones-and that has taken them to some dark places,” Pruyn said.
“I approached Ralph as a character and tried to find the complexities of who he is,” Spencer said of his role.
“He has done some vile, inexcusable things, but in his heart, he is a human being. So I find the parts of him that are in me and try to make him feel universal. I want people to get into his mind, into his soul a bit. There is a difficulty of dealing with what he has done, but the larger questions are ‘why?’ and ‘what has he done as a result?'” Spencer said.
He also added, “If people come to this and are disturbed-particularly because they like Ralph or are drawn to him-then I will have been successful.”
“Frozen” plays through March 31. Tickets range between $12 and $20 and can be purchased at www.artix.org.
