Theatre Review: SnapShots

On the charming Chaplin stage of the El Centro Theatre, Lost Siblings Productions offers LA hyphenate Patty Gliniewicz latest endeavor, SnapShots, a script she wrote, as well as starred in.  The play set on Warren Ave of Brockton, Massachusetts is her third and most personal script yet.  She tells the story of an addict hitching her star to all the wrong places while her young son patiently watches her destroy her life.  Touching, funny, and, truthful, Gliniewicz specializes in telling working class stories that tend to get swept under the commercial rug of today’s credit-card-"middle-class" society.  Ruthie and the like are always taking some kind of stimulant, both illegal and over-the-counter.  In the hand-to-mouth existence of their world, if you’re not moving, you’re dying, even if your destination is a dead-end.

Starting off with a bang, Ruthie (Gliniewicz) enters the living room of her cheap one-bedroom with unkempt hair and gusto.  She so desperately waits for her lover to leave his wife, she celebrates their “six-month anniversary” with decorations and take-out Chinese.  Everything rides on the manipulative Dickey (Guy Mack), with his long heavy metal mane and penchant for showing off his WrestleMania man-tits.  Her golden ticket deals in stolen cars, and works with toe-headed Jerry (the clear-voiced Lee Scotten), both of them bouncing around like a bunch of Keystone criminals.  Jerry’s practical nature both protects him (“He’s my business partner; he’s not my friend”), but betrays his pessimism towards life (“You’re young, you still have a chance,” he tells Ruthie’s lanky son Tommy, played by Devon Coull).

Ruthie’s tiny living space is a safe house of sorts that either operates in mayhem or the crystal quietness of 4 AM.  Before characters emerge from their slumber, a 12-inch TV with a rabbit-ear antennae sits on the coffee table, cords stretching across the room, basking the set with a cool incandescent glow.  A picture of the Kennedy brothers proudly hangs in the center of 1970s wall paneling lording over cans of PBR randomly littering the apartment.  The accents are authentic, which is rare experience when watching theatre/films set in Boston.

As the setting is later 1988, the references in politics, music, and fashion are ample.  There is talk of the Yellowstone fire, Iran-Contra, and Reagan’s delayed response to the AIDS crisis (“He can’t heal the world” is met with “Well, he can at least try.”), as well as the film The Accused (set in the town of New Bedford, only 40 minutes away).  Rock music from that era (Bon Jovi, Guns N Roses, INXS, Aerosmith, Dire Straits, Cyndi Lauper) pepper the scene transitions.  While the time-era-specific allusions can get overbearing at times (perhaps one too many hat tips to Madonna), Gliniewicz is adept at turning pop culture on its head (i.e. the anti-drug campaign, Ruthie answers “This is your brain on drugs,” with, “Yes, I’d like to get some bacon with that, please.”).  The wardrobe includes the tacky attire at its finest (Iron Maiden T-shirt, jean skirt, leopard print blouse), but craftily done without being too loud (which is no small feet considering the atrocious selections of the decade).  Ruthie’s best friend Terry saunters in at one point dressed circa Madonna’s boy-toy phase (she humorously despises the very pop icon who inspires her sense of style) armed with a Walkman.  She looks like a walking stereotype, yet exists within three dimensions thanks to Christine Bergeron’s unassuming execution. 

The show stopping tour-de-force performance of the year belongs to the playwright, however.  As the broken Ruthie, who lives by the seat of her pants while clutching her one basket of eggs, Gliniewicz seamlessly runs the gamut of emotions. as she covers exhilaration, mild disappointment, and, ultimately, heartbreak.  Whether she’s aping the infamous drop-kick from the original The Karate Kick or wielding a knife out of fear, she can elicit the appropriate response during a turn on a dime.  Despite herself, Ruthie is always empathetic, because of the actress.  And, you can't help but howl along with her infectious laugh.  When she gazes at a Polaroid and breathes in the memories, the image feeds her only sustenance while sliding down her coke-addled path to nowhere coated with a whole bottle of Jack Daniel's.  “I think the closest I’ll ever get to love again is looking at one of these snapshots," she muses.  She believably promises to clean up her act and “get ride of all the shit,” making the rather abrupt ending poignant in retrospect. 

Gliniewicz’ script provides plenty of cunning humor.  As Ruthie rubs her teeth with cocaine, she a matter-of-factly remarks,  “Can’t have a romantic evening without it.”  She captures how we gossip about celebrities, ending a discussion with Dickey telling another woman to, “Stick your nose up Jodie Foster’s twat.”  There is some fun sexual innuendo, as well as carefully chosen labels and racial epithets that single-handedly highlight how both ignorance and its expression date the speaker.

If you can imagine Ralph Kramden threatening Alice with, “You want some fucking blow?” you have SnapShots: Honeymoonersfiltered through a dramatic, drugged-up Regan-era South Boston.  Or more closely, an R-rated Roseanne from back in the 80s/early 90s (coincidentally, it debuted two months after this play takes place), when blue-collar got its spotlight with an unmatched dramatic-comedic panache.  Not an ounce of fat on its frame, David McCarthy directed this cinematically-paced, lean one-act that was just wicked great.  The play ran for only three performances and closed on the 2nd of June.

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