[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of B. Light Productions/Jaramillo Productions The Woolgatherer, written by William Mastrosimone, directed by Rob Nagle at The Victory Theater Center, running through September 7.
I had heard of this play, but never seen it staged. So I was thrilled that such a lovely group of artists chose to bring it to life! The Woolgatherer is a play about love between the most unlikely of people. Set entirely in a small Philadelphia apartment belonging to Rose, a youngish woman, shy, humble even. Rose meets Cliff, a brash trucker whose rig broke down not far from Rose’s Five and Dime, where she works behind the candy counter. Cliff was in need of a distraction for the night while his truck was being fixed and Rose was looking for love.
As the play unfolds, it’s clear that they are two completely different people. He teases her about the modesty of her apartment. Her boarded up window she has been too shy to ask her landlord to fix. The neighbor who hears her every move through the paper-thin walls. The microscopic kitchen with a scattering of provisions. Her chair salvaged from the street, her tiny bed so perfect for her tiny frame. She lets him tease, but not without protest.
Cliff isn’t a brute, though, and while he tries his best to woo Rose, he doesn’t force anything. They dance around the obvious reason he came up to her place and the not so obvious reason she invited him. But the more time he spends there the more he falls for her, and the more he teases her, the more she opens up to him. It’s a rather lovely romance and all seems fine until he drops in once again days after their first encounter, and finds her with lipstick on and her hair set nicely. It is then that Rose’s story truly begins. As her defences crumble and she tries to convince Cliff that there is no lover hiding in the bathroom or closet, her emotional instability becomes apparent. Cliff has no idea about Rose’s history. She tells him about a terrible attack in the local zoo where a group of men kill some rare birds as she begs them to stop. Was it more than the birds that were harmed, though? Cliff tries to offer her some solace with his philosophy and it makes an impact. He really reaches her.
The Woolgatherer is a beautiful play. A perfect study on the fragility of love and how we all long for someone to truly see us and know us and want us anyway.
Cliff is a wonderful character for any actor, but there are real subtleties to him that could be lost without care. Antonio Jaramillo seems to understand him, revel in him. He’s a captivating actor and it’s hard to tear your eyes from him on stage. He has that magical ability to hold your gaze no matter what he does or says, while at the same time connecting completely to Ashley Alvarez’s Rose. Proving that it is entirely possible to command the audience’s attention and forget about their existence entirely.
Ashley Alvarez plays Rose as a complete opposite to Cliff. Where he is brash, she is sweet. Where he is loud, she is pensive. Ashley plays her as if there were something slightly broken. Which of course, we discover later in the play that there is. But Rose doesn’t seem completely vulnerable. Ashley brings a stillness that belies an inner strength. She is alone, but it feels as if this was a choice rather than a fate. And she has her own studied way about her that pulls you in. Not at all in the same way as Cliff. More like watching a butterfly fluttering around a garden. Mesmerised by the inconceivable and fragile beauty. At the same time so fearful it will fly away or break in to.
The Woolgatherer is a wonderful, haunting play. Not sad exactly, in fact, the romance is real and the hope happily realised, but sprinkled with melancholy.
These two disparate characters seem like such unlikely partners, and yet it is their need for love and their acceptance of each other’s quirks and wrinkles that compel them. They found each other in spite of their dark stories or perhaps because of them.
This captivating unravelling of their love story is charming, heartrending, and thanks to these two phenomenal actors and some truly deft direction, wonderfully real.
The Woolgatherer is playing at the fabulous Victory Theatre Center until September 7 and I urge you to see it! Since I saw it, it has been rattling around in my head in the nicest possible way! Bravo!
Tickets:
https://www.jaramilloproductions.com
When:
August 15-September 7
Friday and Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 3pm
Where:
The Victory Theatre Center
3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505
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