Gloucester Stage continues its season with the fascinating "Out of Sterno" by Deborah Zoe Laufer. The play deals on several levels with questions of identity and journeying toward a mature level of self-awareness. We follow the arc of Dotty, played superbly by Amanda Collins. As a sixteen year-old girl, she is smitten with love at first sight infatuation with Hamel, a service station attendant. They marry in a matter of weeks, and she lives for the next seven years under virtual house arrest because, "Hamel wants to keep me all to himself."
Hamel, played with macho bravura by Noah Tuleja, is both abusive and neglectful of Dotty, as he conducts a steamy affair with Zena, owner of Zena's Beauty Emporium. Jennifer Ellis is pitch perfect as the brassy and declasse cosmetologist. All of the other roles, mostly female, are played with arch humor by veteran actor Richard Snee. He portrays several costumers at the Emporium, as well as a parade of "bus buddies" that Dotty encounters as she breaks out of her apartment to clean toilets and do nails for Zena.
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| Amanda Collins as Dotty (Peaches) Jennifer Ellis as Zena "Out of Sterno" Gloucester Stage Through July 18 |
The plot is filled with silly sight gags that underscore the serious nature of the questions being addressed in this play. What does it mean to be a real woman? What role do the media - especially beauty magazines - play in shaping a woman's self-image and view of her place in the world? How do the influence of a mother and father carry over into adulthood? "As my father always said . . . " "As my mother always said . . . " How does a mature individual learn to put external influences in perspective and see oneself in a balanced and healthy way? What masks do we wear - and then take off?
Using the playwright's stage directions as a starting point, Director Paula Plum and Set Designer Jon Savage have created a world that Dotty might have created for herself - made up of a motley assortment of items she would have scrounged from her trips to the basement to do laundry, supplemented by knickknacks that Hamel would have brought home to her from the service station. Costumes by Lisabetta Polito, Lighting by Russ Swift and Sound Design by David Wilson all work together to create an external world that gives us a glimpse into Dotty's mind as she begins to emerge as a real woman. A butterfly occupies a place upstage, symbolizing for me Dotty's emancipation out of Hamel's cocoon.
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Noah Tuleja as Hamel
Amanda Collins as Dotty (Peaches)
"Out of Sterno"
Gloucester Stage
Through July 18
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In the Tallk Back session that followed Sunday's matinee, Playwright Laufer shared that the genesis for this play can be traced to an experience she had as a young student at Julliard. Raised in a remote and isolated town, she came to NYC never having worn a dress or makeup. Her Movement teacher told her mother that she needed to learn to present herself as a more feminine figure, so she went to the cosmetics counter at Macy's and was roundly abused by the harridan who worked there. Thus was born the character of Zena, who began life as part of Laufer's stand-up comedy routine.
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Amanda Collins as Dotty (Peaches)
Richard Snee as Beauty Customer
Jennifer Ellis as Zena
"Out of Sterno"
Gloucester Stage
Through July 18
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This is a play well worth seeing and wrestling with. The writing is such that as we observe the real Dotty emerge, we as audience members are challenged to think of our own journey towards authenticity and self-awareness.
The play will run through July 18
Gloucester Stage Website
Enjoy!
Al
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