THE STY OF THE BLIND PIG, Onyx Theatre Ensemble, at the Edgewater Theatre Center. The story is the stuff of mythology: a parent and adult child are locked into a stifling relationship. Then a stranger comes, stirs things up, and brings a bit of hope to a hopeless situation.
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In Phillip Hayes Dean’s three-act play, a blind street musician comes into the lives of a bitter old woman and her desperately lonely daughter. And it’s a measure of Dean’s gift as a playwright that, like August Wilson, and like Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill before him, he’s able to evoke the story’s mythic side while taking a naturalistic approach. Jordan–named after the river that runs chilly and cold–can be read both as a pitiable blind man and as a spiritual being who’s come to earth to help or hinder the protagonists. To Alberta, Jordan seems a savior, while to Alberta’s aging mother Weedy he’s the devil incarnate.
