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A crying child pulled from a kitchen cupboard, a lady abruptly exiting a home through a window and a banged-up finger that turns into bark: The brand new play “Daphne” is chock-full of magical surprises and mystical transformations, however its surreal parts depart the viewers with too many unanswered questions.
Within the play, which opened on Monday on the Claire Tow Theater, Daphne (Jasmine Batchelor) has lately moved in together with her girlfriend, Winona (Keilly McQuail) — an abrupt change that has Daphne’s mates involved. And with good trigger: Daphne resides in an enormous, mysterious home in the midst of huge, mysterious woods with a controlling companion who disapproves of her leaving or receiving visitors. After an accident leaves Daphne with an injured finger, she begins a botanical transformation like that of her mythological namesake.
Daphne and Winona’s poisonous relationship appears to be the set off for Daphne’s transformation, as is the case within the Greek fantasy, when Daphne, a river nymph, prays for assist escaping the predatory god Phoebus Apollo and is become a tree. If “Daphne” is attempting to create a type of mythological fairy story, then the play’s different fantastical particulars solely introduce extra confusion: Winona’s peculiar, unseen hen named Phoebus; the neighbor (Denise Burse) whom Winona warns that Daphne is a home-invading witch; a human face present in a cupboard door.
Scenes with Daphne’s visiting mates (performed by Naomi Lorrain and Jeena Yi with a pleasant, although out-of-place, sitcom-style humor) appear meant to offer some context about Daphne’s world and life exterior her new residence, however they do neither.
Offered by LCT3, Lincoln Heart Theater’s programming initiative for brand spanking new artists, “Daphne” is the skilled stage debut of Renae Simone Jarrett, a member of E.S.T.’s Youngblood collective for early-career playwrights. Jarrett’s script is spare, and the setup is initially intriguing, however finally too obtuse. The path, by Sarah Hughes in her Lincoln Heart Theater debut, accentuates the darkish whimsy of the script however doesn’t present perception into what these whimsical parts are supposed to categorical. The identical for the solid: Although they dutifully inhabit their characters, they can not make them really feel greater than ephemeral.
McQuail is very fascinating as Winona. Her languid manner of transferring, her dreamy supply of quixotic musings and her aloofness — with a pointy fringe of intention beneath — draw the highlight from Batchelor’s regular, although flatter, Daphne. Is Winona the large dangerous of the story, or simply the connection? Is there some better evil? Is Daphne shedding her sense of actuality, or is that this a manipulation brought on by Winona, or by the suspicious neighbor subsequent door? With out clear stakes, it’s tough to speculate extra deeply within the story.
The manufacturing additionally withholds any specifics that will floor viewers in a selected setting. Scenes start and finish with snappy lighting transitions (by Stacey Derosier) between a cool daytime mild and a heat nighttime glow, so Daphne’s world feels as if it exists in a timeless bubble. Maruti Evans’s rustic set design, a front room and kitchen of a house lined with wallpaper consisting of big fall-colored leaves, additionally feels hemmed in, although the couple are supposed to be dwelling in a big, haunting abode.
“Daphne” is so good at creating a way of its foremost characters’ insularity that the manufacturing additionally feels confining, caught inside a set of indecipherable metaphors. However not like Daphne, who’s reworked by the top of this 90-minute modern fantasy, we’re left precisely as we arrived.
DaphneThrough Nov. 19 on the Claire Tow Theater, Manhattan; lct.org. Working time: 1 hour half-hour.
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