 |
| Nick Bucchianeri & Tony Travostino in "Lines in the Sand" (photo: Jim Dalglish) |
In
relating an earlier incident in which a fifteen-year-old initially
identified only as Boy in the play Lines in the Sand by
Jim Dalglish exaggerates his reaction as feeling “brave and strong
and free”, we're given a window into what the world of being
bullied is like today. The play, being given its world premiere
currently at the Cotuit Center for the Arts, is in some ways
reminiscent of the playwright's Unsafe which
was produced last season. In about ninety minutes of dialogue
between two protagonists (the other initially identified only as
Man), there persists a feeling of dread, that something wicked this
way comes. The title refers to those points beyond which one will proceed no further, or once
a decision is made, it is permanently decided and irreversible. The
fifteen year old Boy, Billy (Nick Bucchianeri), a high school student
who has been the object of stereotyping and anti-gay bullying, meets
the thirty-two-old Man, Tom (Tony Travostino), an apparent stranger,
by whom he is rescued from a gang of violent seniors. What develops
thereafter (and won't be revealed here) is somewhat predictable in
that it's perfectly logical, leading to a treatment of larger issues
such as redemption and the question of forgiveness.
The two at first agree on little but the realization
that the catch phrase “it gets better” is just so much bull that
teachers, coaches and counselors say with respect to bullying,
especially when directed toward gay youth, or those perceived as gay.
They also tend to agree about the “bull...you hear every day. About
everyone being special...they're assholes and losers in their own
special way”. It's a cynical view, though not based on abstract
issues but on how the system works today; as Tom cryptically puts it:
“always somebody out there”. The older man advises the boy about
his instinctive flinching from threats: “gotta work on that”.
His most sage advice is about Billy's reaction, in that “there's
this little part of you that believes them. That's what kills you”.
His solution is literally a graphic one: “you gotta draw the
line...fight for that line with everything you've got...inside those
lines, that's you. Who you are”. At times the dialogue is a bit
arch, such as when Billy describes his sketching: “what's left
blank is just as important as what you can see” or when Tom opines
that “forgiveness can be a difficult thing”. Other times things
are left unremarked upon, such as Billy's choice for his alternate
name: Christian (as a person who suffers passively?). Most of the
time, however, the writing is in character and rings true, such as
when Billy longs for “a place where you are not afraid to show who
you are inside”, for which “all you have to do is close your
eyes”.
A two-hander by nature is extremely dependent on the
skills of the actors portraying the two roles, and in this case
they're exemplary. Both Bucchianeri (belying his age and relative
inexperience) and Travostino (so memorable in the former play,
Unsafe) are, to use an adjective too often loosely applied,
riveting. In such a tiny black box, each threatens to blow the place
apart. As Directed by Dalglish and Ian Ryan, they come close to
doing just that. The play has been selected to be performed at the
fourteenth annual International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival this May,
and it's easy to see why. Presented here with Artwork by Jackie
Reeves and Original Music by Sam Holmstuck, it's another example of
Dalglish's mixing of powerful “in your face” writing and wise
restraint, not a mix that an awful lot of playwrights have the wit to
threaten as well as to withhold.
The truth is, it does get better, but not because of
external forces, but from what grows within. One need only close
one's eyes to the banality of bullying and be open to the myriad of
more positive forces that are inside oneself and mirrored in
accepting that in communities there is “always somebody out there.”
Like great theater, It gets braver, and stronger, and freer.
No comments:
Post a Comment