The French-derived phrase “roman à clef” refers to a story in which characters, places, and events stand in for specific avatars in the real world. Think of Hamlet’s play in, well, Hamlet, where the action not so subtly mimics the actions of his traitorous uncle and mother against his doomed King. The reaction is the thing. It’s a device meant to misdirect until the “key” is unveiled. Like a rudimentary cipher, once you discover the pattern of deceit, the truth is laid bare.
In Roman À Clef, local playwright Chandler Hubbard wields the titular storytelling device to disrupt and defy his audience’s expectations. He interrupts the moral narrative the audience continually adapts to with caveats and footnotes, in fits and starts, employing gnashing gears that don’t mesh teeth until very late in the play. There are intentional moments where you’re not sure what the parable is. Critically, these shifts are achieved to varying degrees of clarity, but when they hit, they hit hard. The play is mysterious well past what the common theater-going experience would have you expect.
Personally, I’m all about this. My last few experiences at Firehouse Theatre have been an emotional shank in the kidney from the blurry corners of the story. The Firehouse’s overall programming and execution understand the value of epiphany, the weight of surprise. They also seem to understand there is as much a finality in discovering a fact as there is in discovering there is none to be had. That sometimes all we can do is submit to not knowing – or at least being unsure. Overall, this play posits a conflict between perspective, memory, spite, victimization, and ultimately what we call “truth.” It fields the concept that there’s a truth we agree upon as a group and one we hold for ourselves in muttering defiance.
The meat of this production revolves around a company of actors and their Director trading notes. They voice frustrations with understanding character motivations as written. The Writer/Director of the in-universe play (played deftly and with confident naturalism by Andrew Bryce) insists on portrayals and character arcs his actors find unsatisfying, incomplete, unforgiving, and not respectful of the zeitgeist’s demands for representation. He frequently has to push back on his team because he refuses to turn his roman à clef into a sanitization of frailty, into a betrayal of real experience – his experience.
His entire play is revealed to be a dramatization of a personal history – filled with subjective perspectives on gaping traumas, misunderstandings, and churning bilious memory. His unwillingness to depart from these unflattering portrayals births the real conflict – one I’ll leave to your discovery when you catch the show. It’s difficult to bring to bear the great moments of this production without spoiling the story, so I will focus on what I can. The skill of the play and its players.
As mentioned above, the central character, Jack (John), has to fight for his vision to reach the stage. Andrew Bryce nails the conundrum of the give and take any convicted Director has to apply to this effort. The push to Jack’s pull, played for early comedy, are the actors trying to understand the one-sidedness of their Director’s emotional landscape.
Landon Nagel, plays the patriarch Kingston in a performance reminiscent of John Goodman’s portrayal of Dan Conner (Roseanne) – albeit with a dark twist. There wasn’t a moment he’s onstage that I didn’t believe him. He achieves a duality within the 90+ minute show worthy of note.
Donna Marie Miller manifests Fiona, who represents wisdom into subjective realities, that truths can often run counter to happiness in the now and the future. Even if they are the foundation of righteous indignation. The audience may not agree with her, but they understand her. Ms. Miller puts a lot of love for those that don’t look back on what cannot be changed onto the stage. The humanity exposed in that alone riveted me to her performance.
Tippi Hart plays Queenie, the problematic maternal figure as realized by the in-universe play. She, like the rest of the “cast”, has misgivings about her role being too one-dimensional, devoid of compassion for the realities facing women in crisis. Early on, these are taken as the affectations of an actress in too dim a spotlight. The role blossoms, and so does Ms. Hart, making the final act a revelation of her depth as an artist.
Kelly Kennedy’s counterpoint to Tippi’s Queenie is appropriately heartbreaking as she is put in a position of divulging the impossible quandaries of patriarchal manipulation and sincere personal weakness to her children. Her soul is burdened realistically, her path forward undeniably littered with landmines. There’s a resignation coupled with exasperation admirably brought into balance as channeled through this veteran of the stage.
Keaton Hillman, whom I loved in last season’s Memories of Overdevelopment, shines again in a role tuned to his talents. He’s a joy to watch as he seamlessly pivots between acting, playing an actor, and playing an actor that’s playing an actor. His presence is so organic in each of these poses, I found myself leaning on him for meaning when his character is as much a spectator as the audience is.
Lastly, for the purposes of this review, is Reese Bucher. According to the playbill, this is her Firehouse debut and the beginning of a career incubated at VCUarts and her improv teams Toxic Shock and The Stepkids. She’s outstanding. There’s a device in which an actor has to deliver multiple readings of a monologue, in between criticisms, that culminates in a final reading intended to blow your socks off. Thanks in part to the script giving her a realistic place to tackle this trope, but overwhelmingly built on her own talent, she gets it done. My favorite moments are in her interactions with Jack, receiving conflicting notes and unveiling the cracked mirror between Jack’s wounded memory and a more magnanimous reality. The character is so eager to get the role right that she forces the storyteller to confront his bias.
All in all, it’s a do. Go see this show. Kudos to the Firehouse Theater for being a consistent and evocative reflection pool for Richmond. It is a magic in short supply.
You can grab your tickets HERE
Photo by Bill Sigafoos
