Confirmation at the Chance Theater

Confirmation

The Chance Theatre

by Joseph Hullett

Directed by Jocelyn A. Brown

Get Confronted at 'Confirmation'

by Robert Tomoguchi

for WALLFOUR

Director Jocelyn A. Brown does an exceptional job of creating opposition in her cast of “Confirmation” at the Chance Theater. This chess game takes place in present-day Washington D.C. it's moves centering around the current pro-choice/pro-life debate. Fast-paced confrontations among characters come from all sides.This is one of those scripts where all the dialogue seems deliberate -- not a random word choice anywhere.

Through adversarial relations, Brown stages a production full of hardball negotiation at high stakes to match the heatedness of this real-life issue.

Although each character is fueled by his own agenda, the play carefully removes itself from bestowing upon the audience its own agenda. The script presents both sides of the woman’s right to choose equally well. Viewers on either side of the issue should be satisfied with the representation of the opposing viewpoints.

At the outset of the play, the strong willed Jeri Ransom (Bethany Prestigiacomo) seemed dimensionally limited to an aloof, if not condescending, character driven solely toward one end. The lights come on to Ransom in conversation with similarly agenda-driven Preston Woods (Tony Howley) a reporter-slash-alcoholic, whose character, although a dynamic drunk, also seems limited to a single motivation and single sided personality.

It is the introduction of Brianna Tidemore (Andrea Marie Freeman) that brings out a facet in Ransom that Prestigiacomo is able to run with, making the character more complex, yet her character never seems to land in any place farther than where she began.

Freeman’s performance is as genuine as it is stunning. In one character she plays the political pawn, spying biographer, sexual submissive, and protégé to a famous mentor. Even while torn from all sides, she succeeds in each role her character is forced to play.

Senator Robert Kingman (Paul A. Castellano) is easily the most animated presence felt on stage. Castellano is frighteningly natural in his role of the double-talking, Southern-drawling, backstabbing prick, that one would expect to populate the political arena.

The staging for the scenes in the oval office were surprisingly successful. I wasn’t sure that they would pull off the character of President William Dixon (Bob Campbell) because he was done entirely by voice offstage. However the quick, natural dialogue of character of Lawrence Achenbach, a presidential aide, (Casey Long), really set up Mr. President as an offstage reality.This worked especially well with the theater's tiered seating. The voice of the president coming from behind made me feel like another subordinate on stage getting barked at by the commander in chief.

The most memorable performances had to be those between Myrna Niles, and Kim Kiedrowski. Past lovers, Niles plays Cailin O’Casey a renowned feminist author and pro-choice advocate, and Kiedrowski plays Solomon P. Cohen a pro-life nominee for the Supreme Court. Their dialogue is all at once powerful, clever, fiery and emotional, yet all delivered in a tone that is not much more than a whisper. The attachment between the two characters is so strong that it never needs to be yelled. They show that empathy is possible even between opponents. Do not miss a word of their scene, and don’t cough at the expense of others during it either.

Take note of the trinity of activists in this play. Their roles seem to unfold as progressive stages of an activist career, if not life itself. There is the line given of, “Amateurs have principles, professionals have priorities”. That may or may not be true, but in a biography that would have been written about Cailin O’Casey, she might have agreed, but only in a very early, pre-mature chapter.

Though it may not make the best date material if you are dating someone apathetic or narrowly opinionated, the production is a must see because of the sincerity of its explosive confrontations.

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