By Ernest Kearney — Melanie Holmes’s Negative Spaces takes us into a strange and unsettling place. Lily (Holmes) and her longtime boyfriend Adam (Wes McGee) are ready to take their relationship to the next level and begin to plan their wedding. But with this step the question of children arises and, here, the couple find themselves in conflict.
Adam wants children. Lily is at the age where childbearing brings a host of difficulties and possible heartache. Her hesitancy is enhanced by the memories of her mother’s late pregnancies and the miscarriages that occurred.
“Negative Spaces” Director, Blythe Auffarth
Holmes touches on fears and insecurities that have not received great attention, to the best of my knowledge, on stage or film. And the sincerity she reveals in the grief of her characters shows an awareness of the suffering they’re undergoing.
But the uniqueness of her choice for subject matter is undercut by a poor opening-structure, which divides—nearly—the entire first-half of her piece into very brief vignettes, which breaks the escalation of the work’s tension and leaves the audience in darkness for far too long.
The structure has the feel of a script that has been forced into a stage piece, which is always a mistake.
While well-acted by Holmes, McGee and Laura Coover, who provides the final angle for the eventual love triangle, neither Holmes nor Director Blythe Auffarth has done well by the piece, itself, in staging it in this form.
The series of damaging short scenes that open the play could easily be worked into longer scenes, and the length of the piece could, with work, be extended. As it is, a BRONZE MEDAL.
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Negative Spaces
Is Playing During the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2018
at
The Complex Hollywood
6476 Santa Monica Blvd
The Final Show is: Saturday, June 23, 2018 @ 7:30pm.
For Complete Show Information, Tickets and Reservations Go To:
What is the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2018?
Click HERE and Learn More.
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