Word: matteau
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written and directed by Barbara Matteau...
When two actors share a claustrophobically small set for a full hour with a live band and a couple of painted cacti, there are a frightening number of things that could go wrong. But graduate student Barbara Matteau's Motel Blues, at the Leverett Old Library, offers the rare pleasure of experimental theater that actually succeeds...
Using the music and the cramped theater to maximum advantage, Matteau explores her themes--voyeurism and violation--with startling power, and at several moments creates enough real emotion to justify all the risks she takes...
...creating the atmosphere of alienation and strain, Matteau initially relies on a kind of Beckett-like taciturnity that is only occasionally successful. The way the characters repeat and echo one another's short, cryptic statements--"I'm tapped out," "I can't"--is intended to be disturbing but the rhythm of these sections is off, often falling into a singsong that destroys the intended effect. The style is further undermined by the fact that Flee's valley-girl drawl, while effective for the character, is to mindless and unsympathetic to carry the evocative overtones that this kind of dialogue obviously...
These flaws, however, are more than compensated by the moments of real emotional engagement that the play provides. In an experiemental, student-written play, it is a great achievement simply to draw in the audeince and allow it to forget the limitations of space and resources. Matteau's play goes further; it is a positive success, and satisfying hour of theater...