Gerrit O’Neill (left) and Amber Friendly in Skin in Flames. Photo by Johnny Knight. Playwright: Guillem Clua, English translation by DJ Sanders. At: Stage Left Theatre, 3408 N. Sheffield. Phone: 773-883-8830; $20-$25. Runs through: March 29
We are told, minutes after the start of our play, that long ago, an American photographer in a violence-riddled foreign country took a picture of a child at the precise moment a falling bomb ignited her hair and threw her to the ground—a vivid image that quickly became an international symbol of war’s evils. On this day, 20 years later, the cameraman returns to receive an award from that country’s government, but the newspaper reporter sent to interview him at his hotel arrives with a curious agenda. What neither of them know, however, is that just that morning, in that same room, a young mother has submitted to sexual humiliation at the behest of a United Nations physician in exchange for her daughter’s medical care. By the day’s end, one of these four people will have committed suicide, inviting us to consider who is the true victim of these events.
Once author Guillem Clua’s device of interweaving his flashback with the play’s action-in-progress becomes apparent, we may think we know all we need to know: the Yankee shutterbug has suffered guilt over his part in that fatal day, his interrogator’s desire for vengeance is persuasive, the corrupt doctor is a flat-out slimeball and his exploited subordinate, a helpless vassal. But don’t be fooled by our quixotic knight’s sorrow, or the riddle posed by the introduction of not one, but two, would-be Anastasias exhibiting similar wounds. Our dramatic question is less concerned with the identity of the ‘real princess’ than with the opportunities arising from her discovery.
Clua’s intricate narrative doesn’t make for easy comprehension. Neither does DJ Sanders’ deftly fluent translation, David M. Schmitz’s leisurely-paced direction or Stage Left Theatre’s ensemble of actors whose performances never compromise the complexity of their personae’s motives. (Consider, for example, the scene in which two of the characters swap important information while, simultaneously, the other two engage in several minutes of graphically simulated sex—well, where is your attention focused?) But the surprise ending, however cynical its implications, is well worth the diligence, and lazy theatergoers making the same mistake as they did with last year’s Fellow Travelers in thinking that they can stop listening before the story is all done will have only themselves to blame for missing the punch line again.