Belfry
In this spare, beautiful work Roche proves he understands the central paradox of playwriting: that the best path to universality is through the particular. If you set out to write something that speaks to all people in all times, you’ll probably end up with something as gaseous and empty as the avant-garde play within a play in the first act of The Seagull. But if you focus on the details of life around you–the curl of someone’s hair, the turn of her phrases, the million petty particulars that make this time and place utterly different from anywhere else–you have a fighting chance of touching everyone everywhere.
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Director Ina Marlowe–reportedly working closely with Roche–has come up with an almost perfect cast. Roderick Reeples is every inch the emotionally starved sacristan, moving with the weary pace of a man doomed to life in prison; his voice alone speaks volumes about Artie’s ambivalence over the affair and its aftermath. We’re not even sure whether he repeats his tale as a form of repentance or as a way to relive his all-too-brief romance.
