INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Spooky and serious

Apropos for the season, The Turn of the Screw at the Indiana Repertory Theatre is an exercise in otherworldliness. From the time you take your seat and examine the large staircase saturated in white, lace-like fabric, to the last supernatural scene, you are in between reality and something just off center from the real world. The show uses two actors: Jenny McKnight as the governess, who takes charge of two children left orphaned and in the care of their absent bachelor uncle, and Rob Johansen, who plays everyone else, and also serves as a sound machine and a prop. McKnight imbues her character with passion. Her governess is unnaturally obsessed with the children, and their perfection, as well as the master of the house, who she becomes fixated on. She claims to be seeing ghosts, and believes that the children are somehow involved. Johansen is multifaceted, and churns out character after character, creating a distinct persona for each. In addition, he adds ambiance with his sound creations — a bird, a creaking stair — and is the vehicle for unusual movement, which is incorporated into the two characters’ interaction. This element gives the show a visually perplexing feel. John Green’s direction and Robert Koharchik’s scenic design — which uses four ponds full of water on stage — are impeccable. For a script that is rather dull, the IRT production created something spectacular through talent and innovation. The Turn of the Screw at the IRT continues through Dec. 13; call 635-5252 for reservations. At the Phoenix, Tony Press-Coffman’s world premiere of Trucker Rhapsody opened last weekend. It is about the people involved in the beating and saving of a white man who was dragged from his truck during the L.A. Rodney King riots. Using the word “rhapsody” — exalted or excessively enthusiastic expression of feeling in speech or writing; a literary work written in an impassioned or exalted style; a state of elated bliss, ecstasy — for this work’s title is an interesting choice. It is an abstract play, lacking a typical plot arc. The climax has already happened — the beating of the trucker — and we are witnessing its after-after-effects. The characters express the situation, their feelings about it and their personalities from their perspectives, and through conversations with each other. Coffman set it in a nebulous time and in locations that literally overlap — so someone in New York can have a face-to-face with someone in California. Sequences jump from past to present, conversations run the gamut from life, work, mommas and more. We get to know them as ordinary people, as well as individuals with developed, and developing, opinions — which they are not shy about sharing with “enthusiastic expression”: the crux of the play. Granted, it felt wearisome after a while. An edit that removes the intermission would have helped to maintain the continuity and flow, as well as keep the audience from being overwhelmed by the dialogue, which asks a lot of questions about justice, forgiveness, race relations and more, and takes people from funny to downright traumatic in pop-jerk transitions. Bryan Fonseca’s lighting was imperative to take the audience’s focus where it needed to go, helping to smooth those changeovers. Michael Shelton directs a fine cast that create human beings on stage: Monte Tapplar, Ben Rose, Derna Toler, Bill Simmons, Jolivette Anderson and Bryant Bentley. Trucker Rhapsody continues through Nov. 16; 635-PLAY for reservations.