Ever notice how the minutes can go by lickety-split or seem to move at a snail’s pace depending who you’re with? In the case of the octogenarian couple whose 55-plus-year relationship playwright John Kolvenbach has us spending an hour and a half with in his 2018 four-actor two-hander Reel To Reel, I found the latter to be the case.
 The long-marrieds in question are Walter and Maggie, both 82 when we meet them in the year 2050 (not a typo), though since the same pair played by Jim Ortlieb and Alley Mills as 80somethings are also portrayed at ages 22 and 42 by Brett Aune and Samantha Klein, it quickly becomes clear that we’ll be jumping about in time, so get ready for that.

And just as there are people you instantly take a liking to and others who just kind of get on your nerves from the moment you meet and nothing they say or do can get you past that initial impression, that’s sort of how I reacted to Walter and Maggie.

 I’m not sure I can pinpoint a reason. It certainly wasn’t because x or y actor was playing a or b. I felt the same about them whether it was Ortlieb or Aune as Walter or Mills or Klein as Maggie.

I simply didn’t see their charms the way Kolvenbach so clearly wanted me to, and though I’ve enjoyed the use of live Foley effects in more than a few productions, Reel To Reel’s extensive use of live radio-play-style sound effects (Maggie is an audio engineer whose life has been spent attached to an anachronistic reel-to-reel recorder) was a conceit I simply didn’t tune into.

That’s not to say that Aune, Klein, Mills, and Ortlieb aren’t doing powerhouse work as both actors and Foley artists or that Matthew McCray isn’t revealing the kind of directorial gifts I’ve raved about in his work at Chance Theater, or that no one is more versed in Foley than sound designer extraordinaire Jeff Gardner.

Evan A. Bartoletti’s scenic design makes ingenious use of sliding transparent scrims and a half-century’s worth of accumulated paraphernalia, kudos shared with props designer Nicole Bernardini, Azra King-Abadi’s lighting enhances Reel To Reel’s memory play aspect throughout the production, and Vicki Conrad’s costumes are character-perfect.

Still, there were times when all of this came across to me more like “showing off” than showcasing.

Reel To Reel is produced by Aune, Guillermo Cienfuegos, Michelle Hanzelova-Bierbauer, and Steven Luff. Ivan Rivas is associate producer. Bernardini is assistant sound and Foley designer. Andrea “Slim” Allmond is assistant sound designer. Rachel Ann Manheimer is production stage manager, Rich Wong is stage manager, and Jacqueline Aleksandrovich is assistant stage manager. Judith Borne is publicist.

I went into Reel To Reel hoping to love it the way I had the “unabashedly romantic take on life” Kolvenbach revealed a decade and a half ago in Love Song and Goldfish, though also aware that the “offbeat whimsy” of his 2021 Jim Ortlieb-starring solo Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight had appealed to me considerably less.

As far as Reel To Reel is concerned, though I can appreciate the talent and effort that have gone into bringing it to L.A. audiences, the end result left me, if not cold, then at least cool to this play’s purported charms.

Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles.
www.roguemachinetheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
July 27, 2025
Photos: Jeff Lorch

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Tags: HorseChart Theatre, John Kolvenbach Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Matrix Theatre, Rogue Machine Theatre