Truth in Silences: THIS STRETCH OF MONTPELIER

A quiet night in the American south.  The air is hot, thick with the sound of crickets and mosquitoes, and the sense of unseen stars over lush farmland.

A woman sits in a wheeled walker, at one with the silence.  A mosquito comes to sit on her arm: a familiar companion.  She smiles at the visitor and then gently blows it off into the night sky.

Welcome to Montpelier.

In Kelley Nicole Girod's new play, the silences and images of the six lives entwined on the titular stretch of land are as weighted as the rich, rolling poetry of the playwright's language.  In a series of leisurely scenes, the audience is introduced to the inhabitants of Montpelier:

Miss Janice (Geany Masai), the disabled woman who nevertheless commands from her walker with all the grace and fiery conviction of a rightful Queen.  She has lived life; she has lost children; she is waiting for her prodigals to return, having been a prodigal herself.

Felonius (Donovan Christie, Jr.) a dapper son of Montpelier, estranged from his wife and children, cast out into the unbearable silences of his hometown, looking for connections - even those forbidden to him; even those he's afraid to ask for.

Ruby (Carole Monferdini) and Kacky (Tandy Cronyn), two white women haunted by the death of a boy their husbands killed for having the audacity to smile at the women while being black.  The women's language is Flannery O'Connor: hypocritical, puritanical, anxious.  Two women judging everyone else's reflections for fear of looking at themselves.

And Frances (Alisha Spielmann) and Boniface (Lamar K. Cheston), a young couple on the run from the cruelty of this world.  She, a white woman and very "woke" - but still unable to understand her lover's visceral plight.  He, suffering trauma at the hands of the police, longing for a better world, a Creole world, a world of mud and Spanish moss to spare them from the hatred that pursues them.

Over the course of an entirely too short running time, we hear their stories, learn their griefs, watch as each character struggles with unexpected and unearned moments of grace, even in the middle of their own brokenness.

Director Andrew Block has some nice stage moments, particularly in the overlapping imagery of mosquitoes as friend or foe; the hopeful anticipation of passing cars and outside life; two separate scenes overlapping at a moment of crisis.  However, perhaps because of the nature of a festival show with shortened rehearsal and tech times, some of the direction misses the subtlety and, frankly, silence - the leisure - that Girod's script invites.

Stand-out performances come from Geany Masai and Lamar K. Cheston as Miss Janice and Boniface respectively.  One with all the power of Mt. Vesuvius at home, the other with all the coil just of Mt. Vesuvius.  Girod doesn't hold back with those character's lived experiences either, but lets her own voice seep through more powerfully through those character's mouths - and the result is convicting.  Like any master of the form, Girod's doublespeaking characters - especially Felonius and Miss Ruby - are hilarious and heartbreaking.  So unaware of all they reveal by what they seek to conceal.

Girod's command of language is exquisite.  More poetic than Tennessee Williams, more hopeful than August Wilson, with the searing grace of Flannery O'Connor, This Stretch of Montpelier as much a treat to listen to as it is to watch.  This production, the first and still, in someways, in a state of fluidity, promises beautiful things as it continues to develop.  Watching, I could easily see it on the Great White Way, giving Denzel a run for his money.  But for  now, come on down to a quiet world of personal purgatories, and discover a truly American playwright while you can still afford ticket prices. Strongly recommended.

This Stretch of Montpelier by Kelley Nicole Girod is presented through Planet Connections Theatre Festival, through Sunday, August 5, 2018.

Tickets and information here.

Geany Masai as Miss Janice and Donovan Christie, Jr. as Felonius.

Carole Monferdini as Ruby and Tandy Cronyn as Kacky.