Facts and Figures
Curious Theatre Branch
By Nick Green
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Sometimes it’s the most modest innovations that make the biggest statements. In some ways Ziegenhagen’s naturalistic script–a series of long-distance conversations between two lovers–doesn’t offer many surprises. He maps out his characters’ personality quirks in the play’s first 15 minutes, and in the next hour or so they don’t change much. Nor does it take a psychic to predict the play’s outcome–given the various roadblocks Ziegenhagen sets up, the conclusion seems almost inevitable.
Ziegenhagen’s dialogue is so naturalistic, so firmly rooted in reality, that it’s painful to listen as his characters use words to hack away at each other, reopening the wounds from their last conversation. In the hands of a less accomplished pair of actors, the tightly wound Facts and Figures might have unraveled into another tedious exercise in one-dimensional performance. But part of what makes the script so convincing is the remarkable chemistry between John Roberts and Anne Fogarty. Roberts as the intermittently employed boyfriend manages to add a fresh perspective on twentysomething apathy. And Fogarty brings an air of humanity to his eminently more successful girlfriend, an otherwise soulless management consultant.
Like Magnus, Matthew Wilson is no stranger to performance: he was a member of the now defunct Thunder Road Ensemble and currently performs an original monologue every Friday night on WZRD. But In the Wreckage is his first attempt at playwriting, and it shows: Wilson has grown so skilled and comfortable as a monologuist that he rarely strays far from that form.
