Wendy Moulton, center, surrounded by scene-changers Maddie Cochran, Colin Jones, Stephen Boyhunt and Kara Bauer in "Distracted" at Elizabethtown College.
Shannon Ricchetti and Mike Manley in "A Lie of the Mind" at F&M.
While "Distracted" and "A Lie of the Mind" are very different plays, they have a few things in common.
They are both being produced at local colleges -- "Distracted" at Elizabethtown and "A Lie of the Mind" at Franklin & Marshall; decidedly unromantic, they both open on Valentine's Day; and they are both about dysfunctional families.
Is there any other kind of family, especially on the stage?
"DISTRACTED"
Lisa Loomer's "Distracted" is a comedy about a mother dealing with her son, who has attention deficit disorder.
His behavior turns even the simplest things, such as getting dressed in the morning, into a major ordeal.
"He's acting out at school, falling off his desk to get attention, swearing," director Terri Mastrobuono explains. "Mom is frazzled, at her wit's end -- well, at the beginning of her wit's end -- and she feels like something has to be done."
She seeks help, but it's hard to find.
"The father thinks their son is just a boy being a boy, that there is nothing wrong with him," Mastrobuono says. "And he is particularly opposed to any kind of drug that has to be given to his child."
The experts are not helpful, either.
"There is a teacher, a couple of psychologists, a psychiatrist and neighbors," she says. "The irony, which is underscored very beautifully, is that even these people giving advice have their own issues and they are around these same behavioral issues."
Mastrobuono explains that the people giving advice have their own problems.
"They are ridiculous characters, but they don't make ridiculous points," she says. "How can a child like this boy be successful with 10 more years of schooling?"
The boy in question, Jesse, is heard, but not seen, though his presence is felt throughout the show and he even calls out the scene titles.
The show itself seems to have A.D.D., and Mastrobuono sees the influence of Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett in Loomer's work.
To add to that sense of mayhem, Mastrobuono has turned the four scene-changers into characters of sorts.
"I call them the Forces of Distraction," she explains. "They are a reflection of Jesse's state of mind. They bounce off the walls, jump out of chairs. I want the show to be one continuous burst of one scene after another."
Mama (that is her only name in the script) has a wry sense of humor and is on stage pretty much through the entire show. And she often uses the audience as a sounding board.
Mastrobuono notes that a lot of students in the cast have connections to A.D.D.
"Everyone has a story about someone they know, about medication, diagnosis," she says. "It's really a theme that people can rally around. The cast is really educating me on a lot of this stuff."
"A LIE OF THE MIND"
Sam Shepard's "A Lie of the Mind," at Franklin & Marshall College, goes far deeper into the darkness of a dysfunctional family.
Set in both Montana and California, it explores how two families deal with a brutal act of domestic violence.
As the play opens, Jake is on the phone, desperately explaining to his brother that he thinks he has killed his wife, Beth.
But we find Beth in the hospital, her brain damaged from the brutal beating her husband has given her.
"The play takes us into the homes of their two families," explains Carol Davis, the director of "A Lie of the Mind."
"We see the source of dysfunction coming from their families."
Jake returns home to California while his brother, Frankie, goes to Montana to see if Beth is really dead.
The story goes back and forth between the two homes and the two families.
In dealing with the awful situation, the complex reality of both families comes to the surface.
There is abuse -- both physical and psychological. But as is often the case, family relationships are confusing, contradictory and ever-changing.
"With family, we get through a lot of love and a lot of hate -- yelling one minute and hugging the next," Davis says. "There's that need for family, that need for connection."
But is that familial love just a myth, a yearning we have for something that actually isn't there?
"Shepard writes about the myth of the American dream and the family," Davis says. "And he (often) sets his stories in the west, in the mythology of the cowboy, the idea of expansiveness, of uncharted territory and emptiness, which is symbolic of what is inside of us."
Davis concedes Shepard's ideas are pretty heavy duty, but, as they've worked on the play, "A Lie of the Mind" has been surprising her cast.
"As the actors get hold of it, a great deal of humor is coming out in the absurdity of the situation, of the inability of these characters to connect in a real way," she says.
Indeed, things do get surreal as the layers get peeled off. Dynamics change, some for the better, some not.
"In each case, something has to die for something else to be reborn," Davis says. "There is a sliver of optimism there."
"Distracted"
Opens Thurs. Cont. through Feb. 24.
Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m.
(No performance, Sat. Feb. 23.) $6
Tempest Theatre
Elizabethtown College. 361-1170
"A Lie of the Mind"
Opens Thurs. Cont. through Feb. 17
Thurs.-Sat. 7:30 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m.
$10 adults, $5 students.
Green Room Theatre
F&M College. 291-4017
jholahan@lnpnews.com
