AN APPROPRIATE BAPTISM

While we love all theater critics and their publications equally, it's hard for us not to hold a special place in our hearts for the O.C. Weekly, which has proven itself particularly ardent in its support of local storefronts. And so we're rather gratified to see intrepid Weekly reviewer Stacy Davies deliver her take on pool (no water):

Director Barton and choreographers [and co-directors] Melita Ann Sagar and Lee Samuel Tanng took on a monster with this production—a bare-bones text with single sentences parsed out among actors with no characterizations, directions or descriptions on the page. Employing a cohesive and impressive creative vision, the trio manages to transform the small, brick-wall-enclosed space into a melee of projected videos, revving soundtrack, focused light and creeping shadows that meld into dark, crude poetry. There are no props, save a gurney and a single cluster of shower curtains; these minimalist representations serve the production well, keeping Ravenhill’s disembodied tale in the abstract nightmare world in which all human excess is amplified.

Cast members Lamprinos, Peter Balgoyen, Christopher Basile, Keith Bennett, Sean Engard, Terri Mowrey and Alexander Price are decisively twisted archetypes of the oversexed, overdrugged and self-absorbed pals and co-workers who can inhabit many of our lives; the energy and courage with which the actors bare their strife and bodies is a sight to behold.

--O.C. Weekly