Theater review: Stunning. Important. Uncomfortable to watch. Cotuit stages 'The Way It Is'
COTUIT ― Most of us, God willing, will never see a failed relationship end with the soul-scarring 70 minutes that finally sound the death knell for Cane and Jasmine’s eight years together.
But if we are being honest here, we will certainly recognize some of the power struggle ― the death by a thousand paper cuts ― that goes before the fall.
After watching playwright Donna Hoke’s “The Way It Is” presented by the WatermelonAlligator Theatre Company, I was unsure whether to call the cops or a priest. Something disturbing happens in that tiny theater, something that wears on the souls of actors and theatergoers alike. But something that leaves in its wake a lot to think about.
The show: “The Way It Is,” written by Donna Hoke, presented by WatermelonAlligator Theatre Company, directed by Jess Wilson, featuring Rachael Kenneally (Yasmine) and Garrett Olson (Cane).
What it’s about: After eight years, Cane is breaking up with his fiancee Yasmine — if he can just get her to give back his mother’s engagement ring so he can propose to a woman he’s proposing to mere weeks after leaving Yasmine. Expecting her to be out, he goes by their old apartment to pick up his belongings. She is not only there, but lying in wait.
See it or not: This is not a show for children. But for adults, or “mature audiences only,” as the literature says, it can certainly offer insight into aspects of being human, including sexuality, desperation, violence, sexual assault and failure to even realize when partners are not communicating.
As for the WatermelonAlligator Theatre Company’s performance of the show, it is stellar. Stunning. Important. Uncomfortable to watch. Beyond brave, especially for community theater in a space so small the front-row audience members can reach out and touch the actors.
One tiny thought: The characters tend to retreat to separate corners several times, which is good for symbolism (someone ring a bell in this knockfest) but for audience members in the front row, having the actor frozen there for long moments feels a little unnatural.
Highlights: It is not any one moment that makes this production work: It is the thousand little snorts and hair flips and markers of daily life that add up to both more and less if one bothers to watch carefully. "The Way It Is" only works because the two actors and director are so committed to intimacy — from the easy chatter of two characters who lived side-by-side for nearly a decade to the outbursts of two people hell-bent on destroying each other. Wilson said this 70-minute show required more rehearsal time than any other to make it right and real, which they have done.
Interesting fact: Seeing "The Way It Is" made me go looking for other work by Donna Hoke. I was also curious about how this 2016 play on domestic assault does not seem to be produced more often.
Worth noting: There is a talk-back between cast and audience members after every performance with a member of Independence House on hand to talk about domestic assault.
If you go: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through May 21, Cotuit Center for the Arts, Black Box Theater, 4404 Route 28, Cotuit. Admission is pick-your-price, reservations: 508-428-0669 or artsonthecape.org
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cotuit group's 'The Way It Is' is a spotlight on domestic assault
