MUD

Loft Ensemble imagines a dystopian future populated by ten nameless, genderless global calamity survivors in Mud, a World Premiere drama I found alternately pretentious and preachy

Take, for instance, this opening passage:

“The Beast ruled over our kind since people walked out of the forests and into communities. The Beast fed off the lies born of selfishness and wanting by rewarding accumulation and consuming those without resources.”

Not only has colloquial speech become a thing of the past in the world Mud imagines.  Folks now go by handles like “The Scribe,” “The Innocent,” “The Adjudicator,” and “The Holder,” and they’ve abandoned gender-specific pronouns for a universal they/them.

Flashbacks suggest that it wasn’t all that long ago that Mud’s cast of characters were living lives like yours and mine, trading stocks, preparing haute cuisine, doing construction work, and standing in line at the neighborhood Starbucks.

But that was then (“The Duringtime”) and now is now (“The Aftertime”) and now means dressing in dystopian future-wear, digging holes deep enough  to fall (or get pushed) into, and expressing gratitude for having “made it through this mud” because “a lot of very important people didn’t.”

Human history has been recorded in “The Book,” which also enumerates societal rules that must be obeyed or risk the wrath of The Gardener, one tough cookie if there ever was one.

As to whether they (The Gardener) will be able to maintain The Book’s hold over them (everyone else), well that may depend on the onetime chef now known as The Feeder, who finds The Gardener “full of shit” but had better watch out what they say to them because they’re the one with the knife and the hatchet. (Got that?)

Monologs recalling life in “The Beforetime” might work as acting showcases in a classroom setting, but they prove less effective here because a) we don’t know these people well enough to care about them and b) they (the monologs) end up padding a play that’s long enough without them.

Antwan Alexander II as The Adjudicator, Barbera Ann Howard as The Holder, Benjamin Marshall as The Artist, Benjamin Rawls as The Feeder, Danielle Ozymandias as The Guardian, Lemon Baardsen as The Gardener, Robert Jolly as The Scavenger, Sarah Nilsen as The Scribe, Silas Jean-Rox as The Innocent, and Travyz Santos Gatz as The Hole Digger (at the performance reviewed) take this all very seriously, and though they give it everything they’ve got, they’d be better served had writer-director Bree Pavey given them stronger material material to work with.

(Roles have been double-cast, with each performance offering a different ensemble mix of the aforementioned actors and Biniyam Abreha, Britt Crisp, Emilie Crotty, Ignacio Navarro, Kristian Maxwell-McGeever, Madylin Sweeten Durrie, Maia Luer, Matt Lorenzo, and Mitch Rosander.)

The Loft Ensemble World Premiere does score points for its atmospheric post-apocalyptic production design (set by Durrie, lighting by Tor Brown, sound by Pavey, costumes by Jen DeRosa, and properties by Natasha Renae Potts), though the musical underscoring that accompanies flashback monologs (a four-note “tune” repeated ad nauseum) makes them seem even longer than they already are.

Marc Leclerc provides some realistic fight choreography (Nilsen is fight captain), and “protest choreography” is by Alexander, Mace Bullington, Lorenzo, Luer, and Navarro.

Mud is produced by Pavey and Sarah Nilsen, the latter of whom doubles as fight captain. Leclerc, Lorenzo, and Sarah Sommers are associate producers. DeRosa is assistant director. Bullington is stage manager.

Mud’s opening night audience (made up in large part of Loft company members and eagerly supportive friends) awarded each and every scene, no matter how brief, with applause, and the production as a whole with a standing ovation. That may, unfortunately, be the only award recognition Mud gets.

Loft Ensemble, 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood.
www.LoftEnsemble.org

–Steven Stanley
August 19, 2022
Photos: Jennifer Brofer

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