By Ernest Kearney — Wounded is an engine firing on all cylinders. A granite strong script by Jiggs Burgess, two actors, Shaw Jones and Craig Taggart, whose talents fuse into a perfect partnering, and the deft and precise direction of Spencer Frankeberger.
The story is composed in bold strokes, functioning like a work of Japanese calligraphy. Two high school friends come together for a reunion. After a long absence, Carroll (Taggart) has returned to their rural hometown. He is a kimono-clad prancing self-proclaimed “queer,” whose obvious homosexuality made him a target throughout his youth. Robert (Jones) who is also gay, remained in the South and has purposely tuned his persona to avoid the friction he would otherwise face.
From the outset, the dramatic narrative is in continual discord, with Burgess’ dialogue purposely designed to affect an inharmonious duet between the two men that seems to echo Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
As Herrmann’s composition did, the dissonance of Burgess’ language evokes and maintains a relentless tension. In a series of exchanges, each more savage than the prior, we have a horrible confession and learn of a brutal assault which changed both men’s lives. The vengeance that comes is both layered and perhaps meaningless as nothing is healed if the soul is cauterized down to blackened ash. In the end, the question that lingers is who is to blame if a wound is self-inflicted?
For all involved a Platinum Medal.
****
Wounded
playing during the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2023
at the
The Broadwater (Black Box)), in Hollywood.
For Hollywood Fringe Festival Details, Wounded Show Information, and Tickets Click HERE.
