Marissa Keltie, Carl Lumbly, and Stacy Ross in the first American production of Mark O’Rowe’s “Terminus” at Magic Theatre. (Photo: Jennifer Reiley)
TERMINUS: a Dark Drama. by Mark O’Rowe. Directed by Jon Tracy. at Magic Theatre, Building D, FortMasonCenter, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA94123. 415-441-8822 or www.magictheatre.org Through June 16, 2013
TERMINUS at the Magic is dramatic, dark, daring and a devastating production
In 1925 Harold Ross, the editor of the New Yorker, famously declared “that it is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque.” In 2007 Irishman Mark O’Rowe wrote Terminus that is being given a dramatic, dark, daring and a devastating first American production that would shock that old lady in Dubuque. The opening night audience was silently spellbound until the final curtain when they erupted with a standing ovation.
O’Rowe has created a three-hander series of monologs written in non-descript rhyme without a whit of action yet filled with action in the words of three superior actors. His three characters are nameless indicated only as A, B and C. Consider them as tour guides that take us on a profane trip through the underbelly of Dublin. Before the play concludes the lives of these three disparate human beings mingle, nay collide as that meet death . . . the terminus of the title.
[DARK]: The intimate three-side theatre is shrouded in dark smoke and the stage an irregular black blob that could be a pile of slag from a coal mine or an unfinished construction site that is the place where the play reaches its climax.[DRAMATIC]: A (Stacy Ross) is a female of 40 whom we learn was a teacher and now volunteers at a suicide crisis hotline. She receives a call from a former student who is 8 months pregnant seeking an abortion. There has been a previous relationship with the student and A sets out to aid the girl. On her trip through the back alleys of the city she encounters lesbian gangs who perform abortions in the back of bars with improvised instruments that will appall you.
[DARING]: B (Marissa Keltie) is twenties lonely depressed female who accepts an invitation to share a pint at a local pub. This apparently simple decision leads to an “I dare you to” situation ending high up on a construction crane leading to a brush with death. Fantasy enters into O’Rowe’s dialog and there is the most beautiful passage as B ‘relives’ her past life.
[DEVASTATING]: C (Carl Lumbly) a 30s male whose insecurity causes him to seduce women and disembowel them. He is a mass murder who has sold his soul to the Devil. Lumbly mesmerizes the audience with his sharp diction and frightening change of personality that is written into his monolog(s).Each actor has two turns upon the stage and their paths inextricably cross leading to a contrived ending suggesting that they are all going to Hell. This is the type script that director Jon Tracy can sink his teeth in and he does not disappoint. His actors are pitch perfect in their delivery. Running time is 100 minutes without intermission.
Kedar K. Adour, MD
Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetrmagazine.com
