The Triangle

Issue date: 11/6/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Photos Courtesy Azuka Theatre

We all look forward to the holiday season, our memories filled with the warmth of freshly baked cookies, slow roasted dinners, soft sweater-draped hugs and crackling fires. Yet in that excited anticipation which starts with the first cold spell of the season, we forget that with November may come a familiar chill that has nothing to do with the weather. An excess of family gatherings can certainly make one cold, especially when unwanted recollections make their annual appearances. Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel gives her audience the initial story of one family's unusually ugly holiday memory­-and its past and present afflictions on their three impressionable children. The Long Christmas Ride Home is a Christmas tale that is far from traditional: it sucks out all the picture perfect joy of the season and replaces it with a dry sense of humor and strong Japanese influence. This one-act play is told through the ancient form of Japanese puppetry called bunraku in which actors dress all in black handle and speak for the medium-sized puppets they manipulate. This obscure art form is reinforced by the middle sibling, Stephen, whose character is based on Vogel's own brother who romanticized Japanese culture and doctrines, and who also regrettably fell victim to AIDS.

The first part of the story is presented by a Man and Woman (Seth Reichgott and Amanda Grove)-married, but only in a legal sense; who have three children, but worry mostly over their own quandaries. All speech is exchanged and completed quickly and comedically between the two as they not only rapidly expel their own lines but also their children, as well as narrations of both their thoughts and their spouse's. Only after a disastrous celebration at the grandparents' and a grave car ride home is the audience truly exposed to children Rebecca, Stephen and Claire (Janice Rowland, Keith J. Conallen and Allison Heishman). The kids are finally able to communicate for themselves, but at a cost. No sooner do they first speak than the story jumps years into the future where the children, now grown with troubles to spare, take to the stage in turn with lengthy and heart-breakingly lonely monologues spawned from that one fateful Christmas night.

This offbeat production marks the opening of the Azuka Theatre's 10th anniversary season, and by the amount of talent presented by its actors, Azuka Theatre proves that it has much to celebrate. "The Long Christmas Ride Home" is directed by Aaron Cromie, a Philadelphia based director, performer, teacher and mask/puppet designer. Set designer Craig Vetter provides the company with a beautifully-styled and cleverly functional stage. Teamed with the Azuka Theatre is the Mandell Professionals in Residence Project and a handful of talented undergraduate Drexel Players. "The Long Christmas Ride Home" is playing at Mandell Theater Wednesday, Nov. 4 through Sunday, Nov. 15, with tickets ranging from $15-25.

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