The spectacular opening of "The Walls," with its laceration of hushed voices and women weaving in and out of differently sized white frames, evokes a sense of being both surrounded and confined by emptiness. "The Walls" is full of such paradoxes: the freedom of imprisonment, the lucid clarity of insanity. Written by Lisa Dillman and performed with a brutal honesty as compelling as it is emotionally crippling, the play is not so much a confrontation as it is an undoing, a harrowing snapshot that slowly and excruciatingly eradicates audiences' conceptions of what it means to be "crazy."
At the core of this struggle is Carrie (Lacy Campbell), a 20-something girl who is researching the lives of three women in mental institutions during different time periods. The notion that the mind is precarious, that relationships are always on the brink of falling apart, is exquisitely reflected in the caustic, bitterly funny Carrie, who lives in constant fear of her recently deceased artist mother (Meighan Gerachis) and of inheriting her madness. Inspired "thematically, emotionally, developmentally and dramatically" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," "The Walls" is deeply moving - complex in both its sympathy and judgment of the institutions that surround insanity.
Not once during the harrowing glimpses into the lives of these women are audience members freed from the anguish, fragility and ultimately, hopefulness at the heart of the play. "The Walls" gives full weight to the confusion and ambivalence surrounding mental illness. Yet, for all of its fragmentation and restless, nervous energy, the production sustains a remarkable interconnectedness. Indeed, it's as if the play itself were holding on for dear life. For all of its severity, though, "The Walls" is also quite funny - especially Lucy (Mierka Girten), a self-proclaimed "whack job," whose electric and jagged charisma is impossible to resist. She sums it up best when she says, "There's no choice when you're in it. Because there are times when you just can't imagine the impossible beauty of it."
Reviewed by Centerstage!
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