Word: helene
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...fabulous job of doubling dialogue and repeating each other with static variations. Coupled with the aimless chatter of the Stenographer (Kate Agresta '02) and the Telephone Girl (Thandi Parris '01), an environment of alienation is complete. Everything about this world is artificial, including the commotion when Helen (Erica Rabbit '00) enters the room. The boss has a strange affinity for her and her hands, despite her neurotic and repressed personality...
...Machinal's murky insinuations. The lighting, especially because it seems to be lit from the back, creates a silhouette of figures. This space becomes the sordid space of sexual conquest, first with the boss, later as a murky bar and finally in the second act as holding pen for Helen before her execution...
...scenes in the first act follow with an almost anticipated sense of fatality. Agresta, now as Helen's mother, manages to exploit the tension of the production; she must emote, yet her dialogue must appear to be a sardonic condemnation of maternal care. A genuine frustration at the play's emotional detachment resonates with the audience as the mother forces her daughter to eat a potato. However, the play becomes too rapidly melodramatic too early, as the sense that the characters are mocking themselves undermines the growing emotional tension in the play...
...Helen leads the audience through her honeymoon. In the sterile hotel, she faces her boss-husband with contrived fear that appears self-consciously artificial and mechanic. Gunn does not negotiate the production's tension as well as Agresta; his dialogue occasionally weaves emotional cadence into a part that ought to be strictly mechanical...
...find reading to children as young as six months helps to get them ready for entering school," said Helen L. Roberson, Reach Out and Read's office manager...